wazatherfisherman

These are Thompson reels, made at Tweed Heads by Len Thompson, who was a legendary comp fisho

Well done JOnnO! First of many

Hi Blackfish - These are my mate John's Seamartin's- I don't have any wooden versions, only the mk 11's The 2 wooden ones are in great order as you have spotted. Will be posting plenty more photo's of "old things" over the coming days

Hi Derek- no, I actually really do have way too much fishing gear (never thought I could actually say this and will probably need "therapy" now!)- After giving tons of outfits away to friends/their kids, new fishers etc- what else do you do with 'out-dated' tackle? You can't throw it (too many memories of that "great" thing you caught on it) or You have updated (in many cases) to the latest "whiz-bang" version, often not as good as "old' version (good excuse to 'retain' at least for a while- "just to make sure"), You need extra 'same' outfits for when you take others fishing, or it was "expensive". Then there's the "just in case" conundrum and the "spare" thinking. Also the "new model" idea. Or you simply just love it!! Below are 3 Seamartins- a mk 11, a cedar and a marine ply- highly collectable- have seen cedar versions go for upwards of $3,300 to collectors. One of the 'pinnacle' reels on the collector's "tree"

Hi Frank- those are excellent molds, I bet you sold heaps of Jigs

Thanks Jim, my knowledge only goes back to the 60's though. Really enjoying this thread

Was the 'Action' the multi piece one? Krill had the dimpled body.

Sure did smash the kings- the smaller size were good at Montague, the big ones at the Peak. Personal fav colour was the orange colour in the pic- first one I tied on every time., followed by white. Still got 1 x 8 oz orange and couple 4+half in pink. All new. There were some good cheap copies around for a couple of years, molds made from car nicki, lead, brass wire and good enamel coating.

I'm currently living in a "fishing museum"- my mate who owns the house has a great collection of mostly pretty old wooden reels, cane rods all up along the ceiling, old lures and a fair few old solid glass rods. His favourites are 2 x wooden Seamartin's and a few wooden Thompson (by Len Thompson) sidecasts. There's a row of Irons. Maverick's and WK's hanging off the mantelpiece and all sorts of interesting old stuff. I have more of a 'working' collection, of gear mostly used by me, but there just isn't enough room to get it out and display it- my own favourites are collection of sidecast's from 4+half to 7 inch in different timbers- cedar, poplar, beefwood, white onion wood, rosewood and something the spool turner found on the beach! Spool turner/reel maker was Barry Langley (ex Alvey turner) of Kyogle. Probably have 130 odd rods, 160 (roughly) reels and couple of thousand lures. Have long promised a couple of my Raider mates some photo's. Will try and get some photo's together. My motto used to be "you can never have too much fishing gear" but I am seriously considering 'revising' that statement!

I ended up replacing my Alvey mount Super Barra with an 8' Ugly from memory 1108 GB- was a great rod for throwing Gars n Pillies- a foot longer than Barra- I made it with really short butt to match 600A5 Alvey n 18 lb Tortue

8 Broadway- almost straight across from the Tech and a few doors from the Tooth's Kent Brewery

The Super Barra was another 'must have' I've had about 4 of them (3 stolen from garage)- it was also probably one of the first 'off the shelf' rods as a 2 piece- that wasn't in 2 equal halves- the butt 'half' was much shorter than tip 'half' built to suit the blanks taper. Millions of fish met their doom on Super Barra's - one of the most versatile blanks of it's time

Perfect! All of those are classics (I reckon anyway) got them all myself

Thanks!- That one was easy because I have one! Weiss Supermarket had about 8 of them on the blank rack for ages- I bought mine second hand made up for $20- bargain!! The extension-butt never took off in Aust

There's another great 'bit-o'kit' the Butterworth FMT 72L and MT72L- nearly all the club guys had one as a Bream/Trout rod. I built one at the end of last year for a present. Got 1 more FMT 72 blank left and a FT 67, a Super Barra and a 384GP to make up. All time Favourite rock rod was a Fenwick 1086 with Timber butt, and fav ultralight Lamiglas UL168

Hi Howard the rod was probably a "Silaflex" FT 70- the blank was Brown and sanded with about 3+half ft of Aluminium tube. They were really popular. Silaflex also had a couple of other blanks with the tube but I can't remember the details

Hi Blackfish the rep was Shakespeare's Brian Hale from memory, the 'tube' blanks were Silaflex FT 70's (mainly)- a brown blank with sanded finish, I still have one with about a third of the aluminium tube cut off- the tube was about 40 inches long- for building 2 handed overhead rods- mine is a 'cut-down' version for live baiting with old Penn 113H for "ANSA" fishing (preferred live baiting with Alvey for 'regular' live-baiting in Syd). Thought the 9:1 conversion kit for Jigmaster was "the ducks guts" until I tried it- too much like hard work! Some guys loved them though. Original geared Alvey was similar- too much inertia needed at start-up. Sold the Alvey cheap, now a rare collectors reel

Hi Frank I think you're spot on with the chimney going around 1984- first "noticed" it wasn't there when trying in vain to find the Peak mid-week, which was always hard in winter as the pollution cloud from cars often prevented any landmarks being clear. As one of the guys mentioned earlier, on weekends, the crowd would often race straight for any already fishing boats, assuming they were on the mark, often they (and us) would be way off it.

My mother told me they used to just use the white cloth on a Limerick hook when trolling for Tailor in St Georges Basin as a teenager- she's 89 now

Yes, orange and 'pearl'- Smith's were similar to 'bone' jigs of the pacific islands. Can't imagine how many fish were(are!) caught on both Smith's and plain old white feathers- pro's 'go-to' lures much of the time

Smith's Jig- there's another great old lure- wonder what a younger fisher would think if you handed them one and said "tie this on, it catches everything"

Can't remember the owner's name, but Doug Costain who was then Editor of the old weekly "Fishing News" worked there part time as well. He was also a member of the AFA. It was good healthy competition (for tackle buyers!) to have Mick Simmons, Bob Niven's and Fisherman's World all so close to each other- between them, you could buy anything that you needed. Niven's had everything, they just needed to find it!

Fisherman's World was in Hay St

Same! There weren't even that many houses along the road from Windang to Warrawong and it was 'the' big shopping centre. A new 'Matchbox' car was prized by me more than fishing gear in those days- often got one from Grandparents if we went in to Warrawong, otherwise it was all fishing, prawning and Blue Swimmers

AFA of NSW was also an ANSA club and affiliated with AFCA ("C" for clubs- Sydney Metro Division) Werner also a Sydney GFC member. Trying to remember the name of one of his lures that came as either 4 or 5 pieces of highly polished, chromed hexagonal rod in diminishing diameters - not attached- just fed on line from largest diameter downwards to small (or any configuration you wanted)- no anchor point just put line through and tied treble on at the end.- Any ideas?