Hooking a serious bargain

As a season of piscatorial adventure beckons, it's the perfect time for a kit refresh and specialist fishing auctions can be just the place to look

- Roger Field

FOLK WHOSE passion is deceiving wary fish into taking artificial flies tend to be canny operators themselves. I am reminded of this each year when, Christmas holiday over and the end of the shooting season fast approaching, my mind swings to matters piscatorial: aka buying stuff for the coming season. And, for those of us on a budget, that means searching the internet for New Year sales bargains. However, year after year, usually I discover that you pesky up-at-dawn fishermen have beaten me to the early worms and snaffled the best kit, leaving only 'bargains' I don't want or need until last Christmas.

Just as I was cursing my annual lack of foresight, a jolly alert popped into my email inbox. Mullock Jones was having a 1,500-lot fishing auction on 11 and 12 January.

Happy days. Not least as I have recently shifted from fishing auction sceptic to aficionado.

My epiphany came last spring when I applied to join a salmon syndicate on the lower Wye. Alas, by the time I got the good news the New Year sales were history and with them the opportunity to upgrade my carbon-era kit at knock-down prices. I reckoned I needed about £1,200 for a good, fully-rigged, big river rod and reel at the recommended retail price (RRP). The Game Fair can offer great savings but that was half a season away.

So, thank goodness for a March Mullock Jones fishing auction. However, the reason why I had not bought at a fishing auction before, and what I love about The Game Fair and some shops, is being able to try out the rod, even if it is only waving it about. Not usually possible, sadly, when buying online.