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| One box from Argos and the other two in the post |
The rod and reel I ordered yesterday arrived nice and early this morning. How is that for service! I can see the top of the Argos building from our (home) office window, so it was only a short walk down to the High Street to collect the other parcel.
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| Lots of stuff... click on picture to enlarge |
This is a starter set and contains all sorts of things. The picture above shows all the floats and other miscellaneous tackle, boxes and so on. I am sure this is a case of quantity over quality but I am hoping this will get us most of the way to catching fish. I think we will need some more split shot as there seems to be very little in that little blue box, next to the imitation maggots, I didn't know there were such things! They are made of some rubbery stuff (Silicone?) that sticks to the laminated card and the clear plastic bubble packing and when the packet is tilted move around mimicking the real things - very weird, Sue was not impressed. Wait until I come home with some real ones.
There were two rods and a pole included in the starter set. One match rod, 3m long, a 3.3m carp rod and a 5M 'Tele-pole'. To my untrained eye these don't look too bad and I should be able to use these with ease, all pictured below. I didn't bother to show the whole of the Tele-pole as it is just a tube and is far too long to photograph extended indoors!
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| A three piece match rod... |
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| ...3m long |
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| A three piece carp rod... |
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| ...this one is a bit longer and thicker then the match rod |
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| The 5m Tele-pole |
I would not have gone out a bought a pole from day one, but as it is here, one of us will give it a go I expect. I have not pictured it but a rod bag, big enough to take the two rods and pole, is also supplied. Talking of bags there is and enormous tackle bag included in the set much too big at the moment, although it may get filled with food and flasks and cool drinks initially...
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| This bag is huge compared with the tackle we have so far |
Also included in the set, but not worth photographing, is a bent lump of heavy gauge wire (that is meant to be a rod rest I assume). The folding/telescopic 2.5m landing net has not been photographed yet as I want to show it with a fish in it... Thinking about it we probably need a couple of them. I think I had better add another landing net to the growing shopping list.
Finally there are a couple of reels. These don't look like the best quality in the world but for the price I am not complaining. If they get us going and give us some fun then that is what it is all about.
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| Little match reel and much bigger carp reel |
The other two parcels contained a rod and real that is (was if you are reading this in the future!) on special offer from
Go Outdoors. This rod and reel appears to be far better quality than the ones from the Argos set and at its original quoted price it should be. Time will tell. it will be interesting to see what I think about it in a year or so once I have caught a fish big enough to need an unhooking mat.
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| The Go Outdoors match rod is slightly longer than the Argos one pictured above... |
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| ... and just 'feels' nicer |
The Go Outdoors real is much nicer and comes with a spare spool - all I have to do now is work out how to get the line onto the spool. As I have a fully wound spools on all the reels at the moment I can worry about that later.
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| The reel from Go Outdoors |
Tomorrow, if time allows I will drop into the tackle shop on the fishery we intend to visit and collect some of the last bits and pieces. I need some split weights and I will have to buy a couple of unhooking mats as one of the very few rules is that we must have one each to fish. I am not sure it will get wet for a bit as I can't see us catching anything big enough to need it for a while yet.
Ralph.
