That fish was caught on one of the then new fangled glass fibre rods, but even then I already had more rods than I could fish with. Some were more useful than others, the six foot solid glass pier rod I'd inherited from my brother, the local hardware shop special (we had them in the UK too) spinning rod with its bright gold foil backed whippings both come to mind. There were two others though, one I now know to have been made in Japan, a combination spin/fly rod offered in their hundreds to departing Allied soldiers, and a curious six piece poacher's rod, both of which were cane. I'd learned to cast on the Japanese rod using Charles Ritz' "A Fly Fisher's Life" as a guide - the only magazine covering fly fishing that I could get was Trout & Salmon which had very little to offer the fledgling angler. So I struggled along, despite everyone insisting that what I really needed was a "wurrum", until I captured my first trout.
When fly fishing found me again it was with the by now typical graphite fly rod, capable of throwing a size 10 Yellow Dancer on a WF7F to the other side of the fishery and at first I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Then one day I read a book, and everything changed.
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