Hand Lines

Image above: Homemade Hand Line

A little while ago we spent a few days in Wales trying to look for a future. We stayed with couple who were friends of a friend in a converted barn. As a thank you present I got together a hand line as the guy had said he had a small boat but he didn`t go fishing. The hand line handle I routed out of oak and used an old cork place mat to create a hook hold while it is being stored. The feather rig I tied from holographic curling ribbon and the weight is one I cast in the small video I made (see earlier post).

I had forgotten that I had once done a bit a hand lining many years ago while holidaying in Devon. I paddled across a wide bay and about half a mile out the line I was towing cut through a shoal of mackerel and the rest was history. Despite the obvious advantages of a rod it is still dull compared to the urgency that hand holding a line gives.

If you are looking for some feather rigs for the summer influx of mackerel or a bit of Pollock fishing follow the link below. These are rigs I hand tie from  designs I have used for the last few years to take a few thousand fish.

Messing with paints

I got the paint pots out and did bit of messing around trying to come up with some colour combinations, some I love, some I hate.

Below is Pedro, a very little lure I made as a prototype he weighed 3grams. I made him yesterday from fimo (polymerclay) it took me about ten minutes and then another twenty to airbrush him. I gave him a couple of coats of acrylic varnish and left him to dry overnight. This morning early I took him along with some other lures to the local lake for test run. What a lure he swam beautifully and then I lost him to snag, why oh why oh why.  Poor Pedro you are now like an ex-girlfriend, it was beautiful but it is over.   

The business

I suppose the trouble with business is ultimately you have to make money which is useful but on the whole shit boring. So I am hopefully going to make fishing lures instead and then sell them for money so I can continue making fishing lures and eating and going fishing. That is my business plan, lucky I don`t have to take it to the bank and ask for money based on the last sentence.  The biggest question is, can I do it?  I am not the only person asking, both in-laws and outlaws are asking. I think I can and what’s more I am going to give it a go.

Above is my first advert, this feels a bit like prostituting the thing I love but needs must and at least it is an attempt at humour although an advertising guru would tell me it is sending out mixed messages.    Bollocks to mission statements, bollocks to ethos I am just going to make lures that I like and that I catch fish with, hopefully other people might also. Watch this space the lures will be on sale by the end of the week.

My wife says I always look like that picture above and that based on that evidence I should smarten up my act.  Yes and the hook is real and even with the point snapped off it hurt.