I attended The Big One fishing tackle show in Farnborough, on Saturday 20th February and hats off to Fishface Promotions – it was a cracker!
I haven’t seen any official visitor numbers but at times during the morning it was absolutely ram packed – hundreds and hundreds of anglers all looking for a bargain or two and taking advantage of the excellent displays and seminars by the tackle manufacturers and angling celebrities that attended.
Parking was easy and as promised there was a nice touch in that for anglers that overindulged themselves on the discount tackle (especially heavy ground-bait, pellet and boilies) there were a number of motorised buggies to ferry you and your purchases to your car. I got there for opening – around 9am – and was pleasantly surprised that the queuing situation wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I think I was inside with entrance ticket purchased within 15 minutes – a testament to the excellent organisation.
My only gripe was that it wasn’t clear where the Tournament Casting demonstrations were and in the end I left without seeing them, which was a shame.
As you might expect the tackle on offer ranged between genuine, bargain branded tackle to not so bargain non-branded items (albeit very cheap) to the latest high-end products at competitive prices (especially on the carp side). I didn’t really have a shopping list so just enjoyed rummaging around each stall looking for any tackle bargains on offer. In the end I walked away with the following:
- Mitchell Privilege II Boat Rod – £29
- 2 x Rapala CD-22 PM Mag ‘giant’ Plugs – £4 each
- Lucky John Water Shaker wooden jointed lure – £3
- Middy Sea System 8/0 O’Shaughnessy Hooks (with bent down eyes for Pennel rigs) – £1
- 4 x DAM Sumo Feathers & Shrimp rigs – £3
- 14 x Shakespeare Tidewater Sea Rigs Mackerel & Launce Feathers (my favourites) – 50p each
- 2 x Small Fox Neoprene Reel Bags – £1 each
- Berkley Stainless Steel Line Clippers & tool – £3
- 6 x Rubber coated lead weights – 60p each
That was my haul. What did you buy? [please add comments below]
Already looking forward to next year.