A fascinating couple of fishing tackle trade related days

For a while now I have been pushing Savage Gear and now Pure Fishing to try and involve me a bit more within the trade side of the actual fishing tackle. Covid came along and completely messed up any plans we might have had back then, but to give Pure Fishing a lot of credit they properly really went for it earlier this week by putting on a tackle trade event at a hotel on Hayling Island on the south coast. It’s all very well somebody like me thinking about and helping to create bass fishing tackle with the various bods I work with, but for a long time now I have believed that there has to be a way of translating more information to the trade on the actual products, how to fish them, what items of gear are designed to work with other items and so on……………….

Fishing junkie Will Cooper who helped out so much at the event

But of course I know nothing about how to sell fishing tackle to the trade, and not for one second would I presume to know about how a tackle shop sells fishing tackle to anglers like you and me. I like to think I know a bit about fishing, but I have always believed that my main strength is communication. For a long time now I have wanted to find a way of getting in front of the sales people and the tackle shops and communicating with them about the gear “we” do and how “we” envisage it being used and rigged and explained to anglers and so on. You want people to understand the gear to help them catch more fish.

What I really want to do is keep learning. The whole fishing thing - work and play - consumes me because it forces me to keep learning. You have probably guessed that I don’t have much time for experts and big fish heroes when in the grand scheme of things it’s the going fishing and loving doing it which floats my boat. Via my work and I guess those old TV programmes I used to make I get to communicate with anglers and fishing tackle trade people all around the world. Whether that be face to face or via this blog and social media and so on, it doesn’t really matter - fishing is so much about people, and I have always found that most people involved in fishing in whatever capacity are good people. For sure I get to meet or come across a few tits from time to time, but it’s no different to the big wide world in general. Fishing is awesome and the last few days rammed it home in spades.

I reckon that what “we” did was a great big first for the UK bass fishing scene. I dread to think what the few days actually cost Pure Fishing to put on - personnel, venue, hotel nights for a lot of people, food, drink, travel etc. - but they are obviously a big company and they are not about to go bust putting on an event like that. It was a gamble though to ask a whole bunch of people from the trade to come along to a venue and listen to people like me talk to them about bass fishing tackle and my thoughts on how we might use the various items. What I was hoping for was a lot of interaction from the floor, and I got it. I didn’t want to stand in front of a screen and talk at people for hours on end, and very quickly on day one I was already getting loads of questions and feedback and ideas. I can tell people how I use the many different items of fishing tackle, but what the hell do I know about running a fishing tackle shop in Sussex where their customers have no call for anything which might help them fish into 30mph of wind and a raging short sea? I know squat about running a tackle shop for starters, but I am old and I hope wise enough to recognise that the bass lure fishing world is far more varied than you could ever imagine. The last few days were fascinating and I could not be more excited or motivated. I also got to meet Ben Bassett who is a very talented and obsessed LRF angler, and the poor bloke had to sit and listen to me on both days before he got up and gave an excellent talk and also engaged with the floor.

Somebody like me who does what I do with a company like Pure Fishing is very expendable though. I love what I do with them and there is so much more I want to do and get involved in, but I am not a full time employee and it’s very difficult to measure what I bring to the table. I recognise that a business deals in facts and figures, so my biggest problem if you like is that a lot of what I think I do well can’t really be measured. The last few days have been fascinating on so many levels, both from my point of view and also I believe from the point of view of the Pure Fishing grownups who worked their backsides off to make what we did a success. For sure fishing is about fish to catch, but I would also suggest that the fishing tackle we use to catch those fish and which we surely take for granted is absolutely nothing without the fishing tackle trade.

The couple of fishing tackle trade days were deliberately kept very relaxed and low key. It turned out to be far more than I was hoping it might be, and we even managed to get the guys out fishing around the hotel and a few small bass were caught in some very bright sunshine and flat calm seas. On Wednesday afternoon I walked the guys over to a creek to show them how I might work a few of the lures I had been talking about. We are talking about a nondescript little creek with crystal clear water and entirely too much floating weed to be able to really show the lures off properly, but lo and behold if what looked like an okay bass didn’t go and bloody turn on my SG Slap Walker surface lure the very first cast I made! You all have a good weekend and I hope you feel as enthused and excited about the whole saltwater lure fishing thing as I do………..