I don't need any more floats...

No I don't, but I don't need to go fishing either!

As I didn't get a chance to go fishing last weekend, I thought I would go and seek out my local fishing tackle shop. Sue and I jumped in Sue's recycled Swedish fridge and headed off west. A few miles from us is Hemming Fishing Tackle. Having never visited a tackle shop in my life before (other than the small shop at Bax Farm where we went last week) I looked in the window and was faced with an overwhelming array of, well, fishing tackle. It was at this point I realised there appears to be a lot more to this fishing lark than I thought.

This place is huge and it is full of stuff!  As I walked in the door the bloke behind the counter welcomed me warmly and asked if he could help. Faced with what seemed like an endless tunnel of stuff, It was decision time. Do I tough it out and pretend to know what I was looking for or do I come clean and admit to feeling this vast space had suddenly become incommodious. I chose the latter and polity informed the guy that I was new to angling and would it be all right for us to have a look around? "No problem at all" came the reply. "Just let me know if I can help you".

Now, you know I said I didn't need any more floats - I lied!

See I told you...

My 'studies' had revealed a lacking in my rapidly growing armoury of maggot drowning equipment. According to Mr Hayes, see video HERE, I need a clear insert waggler or two. My army of floats so far is made up from a tube of floats that came with my starter set. I can't knock these as I managed to catch a few carp on my first, and so far only, outing!  There are, however a few points to mention regarding these cheap floats, after my first experience with them .

The most obvious disadvantage is they are not marked with the required bulk weight. This is not too much of a problem, as a bit of experimentation enabled me to work out how much weight was required, however the fact that it leaked and started to fill with water was not great! I will still use these cheap floats but with no point of reference, I am not sure how they are supposed to perform.

So now you can see, I do need some more floats.

As I was in this huge Aladdin's cave of of goodies it would not be right to leave without buying a few floats and some silicone adapters and some more shot and a tackle box...  That will do, I was only looking.

A box full of tackle - should keep me going for a bit!

Purchase complete it was time to do the thing we had gone out for - a spot of shopping (Yuk!). Perambulating through the streets of South East London, if such a thing is possible in a car with a solid floor, we happened upon our local Aldi store. A visit here is always good for the essentials, wine, crisps and fig rolls...  Pardon? ...Oh, sorry, I mean Milk, Cheese and Bread.

More floats but they were cheap and they came with other stuff

During this long dull trudge through this temple to bar-codes and cellophane, I spotted a discounted items bin.  Losing the will to live, I sidled up to a bin marked 'End of promotion discounts' and peered in. Sitting on top was a tube of those cheap floats plus some other bits and pieces including a couple of packets of hook-to-line. Priced at £2.99 that seemed like a bargain, especially as it included some insert wagglers. I found three packets in that bin and elected to buy them on the basis that the hooks-to-line were worth that. 

Now I have even more floats. I have earmarked a tube for Tim to have a 'play' with. out of the other two it turned out that some low-life, maggot-loving cretin had stolen the hook-to-line packets from one of the tubes. Apart from being very irritating, this did not mean too much as the rest of the tub's content is worth the money to this beginner. The contents of one of the complete tubes and the part tube have now been added to the tackle box which, at the moment, is communal. This may change if I ever get Tim to the water's edge.

 I don't need any more floats...

Ralph.