It’s not always about money. Is it?

Many of you who follow our site may have noticed something of a quantum leap in our stock especially in the area of top-quality collectable items.  Our reputation for the swift buying of collections helps enormously plus the plethora of superb reviews from customers on Trust Pilot make us the ideal trusted port of call when selling (or buying) quality pre-owned tackle.

Being busier at our Weston Super Mare HQ means more calls for me to make from my Sussex home and over the last few weeks I have enjoyed assisting Dave with buying stock. A three hour drive to the North resulted in the amazing 250 reels purchase being listed now. Various trips round the M25 (another one today) resulted in superb collections of both vintage and modern rods. Quality, quality, quality all the way.

This is great for us all but a visit to Crowborough to meet Norma the widow of David Park resonated with me the most. It did not start well being advised that most of the reels have been sold but no-one seems to want the rods!  There in the corner was the dreaded pile of ‘old’ cane rods, 28 in all. “He made them himself you know? Mainly from split cane blanks purchased from J B Walker of Hythe”.

I then started to look at the rods and they all had his insignia of Ferox on them and names of places where David fished. The Wylie, The Helmsdale, The Dovedale, The Blickling etc. and one named The Beachampton. The Beachampton? “Oh yes that was named after the hut on the Upper Ouse where Dave used to fish with Richard Walker, Fred Taylor and Peter Stone etc.”

Now as someone who still has a 1975 copy of the legendary Stillwater Angling by his bedside I had to find out more. Some of you may know of David by the name “The Vagabond”. He was a prolific writer on forums and also I understand wrote for the Waterlog magazine. He also wrote a book called ‘Angling Vagabond A Glorious Boyhood’ illustrated by the late Cliff Hatton who we knew well.

I found an article in the Sussex Argus from May 2009 whereby at this stage David had caught 495 different species of fish from sticklebacks to a 9ft white sturgeon. See image of David with a nice Tigerfish.

This really is a case where my heart ruled my head and the purchase perhaps makes little commercial sense but I am going to research further. If anyone has any information about David and his fascinating fishing life I would be very interested to learn this. Please advise through office@thomasturner.com