Specialist dealers and collectors will be doing the next best thing on Sunday, November 21, when the annual niche National Vintage Fishing Tackle Fair returns to the Abbey Stadium Sports Stadium in Redditch, Worcestershire.
Organiser John Andrews said: “There will be a lot to see and a lot to buy as the dealers tell me they have kept back stock to sell for the past 18 months as they waited for the fair to return.”
Among them is Mike Baldwin from Milton Keynes, with early Coxon and Allcock aerial reels, and John Stephenson of Thomas Turner Fishing Antiques in Reading, founded in 1838 as a gun dealership. Selling copies of their profusely illustrated reference guide One Man, One Rod: The Art of Classic Split Cane will be David Petty and David Watson.
Andrews added that he thought during lockdown many people had either gone back to angling or taken it up to improve their mental and physical health as well as maybe being a return to the safety of their childhood during pandemic fears.
