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Remember the old fishing tackle
shops, often tucked away in a corner shop or a back street? Mike Firth
meets the Sheffield father and son who are giving the sport a whole
new image....
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February 2003 |
It all
started with a battered old cane basket, a split-cane rod and a box of
worms. The young Tony Flint was hardly well-equipped for his first
angling trips when he caught the train to the rivers of Lincolnshire
from the old Sheffield Victoria Station, but nowadays he has more tackle
to choose from than anyone else.
Tony and son Rory have just opened what is already labelled the best
fishing tackle shop in the country - a superstore of tackle, bait and
other vital equipment in the premises of a former Dronfield nightclub.
"I'm told by people in the know that we are the best in the business,"
said Sheffielder Tony. "There may be other shops just as large, but they
don't have the same staff knowledge as us and they can't match our
prices."
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There is little
wonder that the massive Climax Fishing Tackle premises are already
attracting serious anglers from as far afield as Scotland and Kent.
"We are basing the business on the supermarket theory," explains
Tony. "When anglers plan to do a serious spend they need to see a
full range of products to choose from and that's why they are coming
to Dronfield. "Angling is the largest participant activity in the
country and there are more anglers per head of the population in
Sheffield and Rotherham than any other area of the country. Just
like with other popular sports, the range of equipment is getting
wider all the time."
Tony and Rory previously ran The Carp Cabin at Meadowhead and
Matchwinner tackle shop at Coal Aston but the range of equipment
they now have on offer dwarfs their previous displays. The Climax
showroom has huge appeal to anglers of all persuasions, whether they
prefer carp, trout, sea fish or whatever. Rory is the carp fishing
expert while Tony prefers to fish for barbel... when he gets the
chance.
"I usually try to get away fishing myself at least once a week but
I've hardly had the opportunity since we began working on this new
business last September," he says. |
Just some of their specialised
carp fishing equipment.
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His first angling
excursion - like those of many Sheffield fishermen - began either on
the Victoria Station platform or by catching one of Emmanuel
Jeffcock's coaches out of Pond Street. "In those days it seemed to
me as though everyone went to the match on a Saturday and then went
fishing on the Sunday."
The big changes he has notice over the years have been a decline in
river fishing and the development of purpose-built fisheries closer
to home. The beauty of this switch in trends, he says, is that
anglers can now often drive their cars right up to their chosen
fishing spot.
So if you have fisheries on your doorstep and the best-stocked
tackle shop in the country just down the road, does this mean that
catching fish has suddenly become easy?
"No," says Tony. "Even the best anglers can still go out and catch
nothing. But that is part of the appeal of the sport. If every time
you went fishing you were guaranteed to catch lots of fish you would
soon get bored with it."
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Tony and Rory outside their awesome angling centre
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