Thursday 19 December 2013

Things of great beauty

It is one of those ironies that despite inventing modern day fly fishing many of the great innovations happening in our sport are now born outside the British Isles; even our brand names are acquiring foreign owners with 2013 at watershed year in that respect seeing House of Hardy bought by an American conglomerate and Farlow's a wealthy Russian.

Abel hemostat  
Is any of that bad? I am not sure, but when I see the beautiful, tactile hemostats recently launched by Abel reels of west coast USA I don't really care who made them, I just want one and actually I now do. I was lucky enough to see a prototype about a year ago, got my foot in the door and commissioned a small production run just for Fishing Breaks. As it turns out mine were the first ever out of the factory, which was a saga in itself - you have to admire the guys at Abel who close on Fridays during the summer as it is surfing season ... well I guess if your factory was on the Californian Big Sur, you might do the same as well ....


As I write my hemostats are currently in a warehouse at Heathrow awaiting customs release now I have paid a Chancellor's ransom in import duty but I am sure they will be here in plenty of time as our Feedback draw prizes for 2014. If you can't wait that long, or don't fancy your chances in the draw, here is the link to Abel. I don't think the hemostats will be in UK stores until spring of next year.

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