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Tackle Adaptations Made at Home

Damian Kimmins

Damian Kimmins

Senior Member
Does anyone make adaptations to shop bought tackle items that are perceived to be inadequate or might be improved upon?
Interested to learn of others ingenuity and inventive natures.
 
I’ll be watching with high interest
I love a bit of diy ingenuity.

I’ve modified loads of stuff and not always for the better….. when things go wrong
2 recent things have been my wading table here https://barbel.co.uk/forum/threads/mechano-time.20767/
And my multi tip avenger project which is being built from 2 knackered avenger 2000’s
It’s currently at this stage.
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2 tips (specialist waggler/fast splice river)
Dual length 13/14 ft.
 
I did modify a pike slider float once. I’ll try find the picture later.
Basically there’s a very shallow clear backwater on the great Ouse that holds some big pike. And on afew occasions when fishing flat float I’d be sitting there watching the float and you’d see a big pike sat under the surface staring at the float and not remotely interested in the bait sat 3 feet below it.
So I added weight to one side top and bottom and painted the underside brown to represent a stick from underneath.

Now whether that equated to more runs I really don’t know but what I did notice was they weren’t interested in the float after that.
 
Here we are.
So the angler sees a nice bright float and the pike sees what I guess would look like a floating turd 🤣
Either way it stopped the buggers showing interest to the float.

Piss poor catch rate didn’t go up much mind 🤣
I signed that one before giving it to a mate. Didn’t want him claiming my millions if it was a winner 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Back in the early 80’s I popped into a Dorking tackle shop and noticed some enormous bank sticks being sold as ‘Thames’ style. They were made from thick walled alloy tube around 1” dia and extended to 7‘6”.
I thought they would make a bombproof landing net handle given a lot of my fishing back then was on gravel pits as well as rivers so the reach at 7’6” would be ok.
I hacksawed the point off and fitted Fuji but cap and shrink wrap ( I was into rod building back then)….. then dispensed with the alloy 3/8” BSP insert and turned a better one from stainless steel,… also replaced the thumb screw with S/S as well.
It’s still going strong after all these years,… I have to admit that I brought a 3mtr carbon pole 3 or 4 years ago because I needed more reach as my rods got longer and my stillwater angling became a thing of the past.
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Can’t remember how long ago it was when the little plastic bait droppers disappeared off the shelves but whenever it was, I made a batch at work because I liked them so much for hemp and caster fishing. I have others but these were a favourite.
They reappeared some years later but my reproductions are still going strong.
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Back in the 90’s I made myself a rod pod to my own specs with various attachments for indicators etc.
It all folded down nicely but was a feat of over-engineered stupidity really. Alloy bar and tube with stainless fittings,…. worked well and spent many happy hours sat behind it admiring my handy work 😂
It now gathers dust and spider webs .
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