Expensive tackle is not key to the best results

I READ with pleasure about young Amelia Pyles’ catch on £10 worth of tackle. In the same issue of Angling Times new tackle was advertised at outrageously high prices, enough to make your eyes water.

Fixed-spool reels and feeder rods cost almost £400, and there were poles at £2,500 and keepnets for £140.

I was fishing on a commercial this week and another angler arrived with so much tackle that he needed a fourwheel trolley to carry it all.

On the flipside, I arrive with my basket over my shoulder, rods under my arm, and fish with a 12ft split cane rod and a centrepin reel – tackle I have used successfully for over 60 years.

The chap with the ‘removal van’ of tackle was catching tiny roach at the end of his massive pole while I caught four good carp, three bream and six very big roach. Michael Randall, email