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HERE'S ONE I MADE EARLIER

Our June 1998 contribution from Jon Beer

I do, in fact, have a staircase going up - not long, but it serves. I do not, however, have one even longer coming down and I certainly don't have another one going nowhere just for show: I am not a rich man.

There are many reasons why I am not a rich man but one of them is that I am not sponsored by one of the bigger, multi-national tackle manufacturers in order that I might discreetly endorse their hi-tech, high-priced products by catching fish of an unlikely size and being photographed next to them. I am not even sponsored by a medium-sized British tackle firm. In fact, I am not sponsored by anyone.

The reason for this is not, alas, integrity and high moral principles. I have some principles, of course, and if any multi-national tackle manufacturer comes with a brown envelope stuffed with cash and doesn't like them - I've got others. But they do not come and, really, I can't blame them.

The reason is simple: I am no advert for the tackle trade: I am addicted to making my own fishing tackle. There is something about a rod bag for my four-piece travelling rod made from the leg of ex-favourite pair of trousers. It is the same something possessed by a nylon spool holder and cutter made from a Boots dental-floss dispenser and a folding wading-stick-cum-camera-monopod cobbled together from a lightweight tent pole, a rubber walking-stick end, a short length of dishwasher-waste-hose and the top of an old tripod. And so on.

Not everyone will see this something. I know that. There are folk who believe that if you need a fly box then the thing to do is to go and buy a fly box rather than get a tin with a hinged lid that used to contain hot and nasty sweets called "Fisherman's Friends" but which has a splendid picture on the front and evostick a layer of ethafoam onto the inside of the lid and bottom.

There was a time when all fisherman were expected to improvise the less obvious bits of tackle and fishing books contained helpful little tips and recipes. I have one in front of me from 1943. It has no less than three recipes for stuff to preserve leather fishing boots, the least disgusting of which requires two ounces of turpentine, two ounces of "yellow wax" and an ounce of Burgundy pitch to be melted into one pint of neat's foot oil "over a slow fire". And here we have a problem. In 1943 it seems, with the world in turmoil, you could stroll into a hardware shop and buy a bottle of oil made from cow's feet. I would not care to try that now. Our world is not geared for the man who wishes to make these things himself. Dick Walker once handed out the recipe for his Permaflote dry fly floatant. It was very simple and consisted of wax dissolved in ethyl acetate, the stuff we used to drip onto blotting paper in the bottle of a jam jar to make a "killing jar" for collecting insects. We used to buy bottles of it from the chemist. I tried to get some the other day to make up some of Walker's floatant. The chemist's assistant had never heard of ethyl acetate but she went off to ask the chemist. She came back with a strange sort of something in her eye and nervously asked me why I wanted ethyl acetate. While she kept me talking I could see the chemist was frantically phoning - presumably to the police - so I did not hang around to discover what new and illegal use ethyl acetate can be put to. Come to think of it, I would not fancy my chances of buying blotting paper nowadays.

So here is a simple gizmo I probably did not invent but which I carry always. It requires a wire coat-hanger and a length of string neither of which are, at the minute, considered offensive weapons within the meaning of the act.

Cut the coat hanger to get the long straight bit of wire from the bottom and bend that into this shape:

The bit between the arrows must be a little bit (1 cm or so) longer than the gap between your rod top ring and the next ring down. The rest should be as small as possible but with the hook about 3cm or so across. The string is 1.5 times the length of the rod and the end is tied to the loop in the wire.

This is what it does: when your fly gets stuck high in a tree, slip the gizmo into the top rod ring and down through the next. Hold it there with the string pulling down the length of the rod. Use the rod to place the wire hook over a branch then slip the rod away from the hook and out of danger. Pull the branch down with the string. Retrieve fly. Piece of cake.

So: there's mine......what's yours?

If you have your own information to add please drop us a line.

Jon Beer contributes regularly to publications including Trout & Salmon and The Telegraph. If you have any comments, do not hesitate to get in touch or use the message board.