No More ‘Seek and Destroy’
It was on a filming trip to Denmark, that fishing with the ’locals’ gave me the insight to a whole new way of the best tackle to use. We fished out of a little town called Kertiminde. On the boat with us were about 40 other people.
Not many people in Denmark fish for the sport – but for the table. So whole families right down to babies were on board and anyone capable of holding a rod, was fishing. Everyone was given a big plastic box which was filled with fresh sea water – the idea being that any fish you caught was kept alive as long as possible so that it would be fresh when you got ashore.
The majority of anglers in Europe use very light tackle by our standards – normally spinning rods and fixed spool reels, 12 lb line and small lures.
Here was I surrounded by this kind of tackle and me using British ‘seek and destroy’. Every one was catching fish – even the youngsters. Me – nothing.
Now Bernie, the Director had spoken to one of the Danish anglers before we started filming and had arranged with him that if my gear didn’t work, he would walk down the deck and offer to lend me his spare rod and reel. This he did. First drop down with a little red 40 gram lure I took a seventeen and a half pound cod.
That is what convinced me all those years ago to do away with all this heavy gear that I used to use. Nowadays for all of my boat fishing I use a 12 lb – 15 lb class Abu Suveran uptider and a small multiplier. Some of my reels are loaded with braid lines and some with nylon, but none of them are heavier than 20 lb b.s.
