Kevin Siddle
Senior Member
When I started back fishing last year after a 20+ year break I promised myself no tackle tarting and that I would only buy what I needed! Now 18 months later having manage to justify to myself that everything I have bought was essential I am unable to make sense of the tackle side of my garage despite more reshuffles than the government and am pondering which of the multitude of rods and reels I should keep and which in all fairness should go on to people who will actually use them. I do like nice things and amongst those I have two pairs of castizm br 25's. One pair I use constantly and the second sit on an original pair of power mesh specialist barbel 2.75's. I used the rods last winter when the conditions demanded but changed the reels over leaving the second pair unused.....ridiculous, as pointed out by my wife! On another occasion I bought a pair of Mitchell 7000 avocasts which I put on Korum 13' big water rods, not a pretty site but in fairness those reels will retrieve any barge I've seen on the Trent in the last year. My mate cannot look at the rings on the rods, as he says you can wind a feeder back through them. Surprisingly this particularly ugly combination proved very effective and far more forgiving than looks had me expecting, just goes to show what balancing tackle does in the right circumstances.Anyway I've just bought a Shimano 4000d to go on one of my barbel seekers and will probably let the almost unused pair of castizm's go if anyone is interested....If they sit and carry anymore dust they'll soon weigh as much as the Mitchells.