First Chub

I've been busy with work, so just one session again this month, a short session on 26 February at The Coopers Arms under sunny but chilly conditions with some rain showers and cloudy water. I managed a decent Roach and a nice Chub about 2lb.

After buying a 13ft Shakespeare Strike Fibreglass rod, I researched the company and found the following brief history. In 1897, an American development engineer by the same name started manufacturing fishing reels in the USA. When William Shakespeare Jnr. held the first reel in his hand, he could not have foreseen the corporate empire it would create a century later. But men of innovation are often men of vision. His brand was to become recognised as the most famous and well-known in the industry worldwide.

It was in 1965 that the American Shakespeare business acquired the interests of Topp Tackle, which comprised the former Allcocks and Youngs manufacturing operations. Located in Redditch, S Allcock and Co Ltd, whose origins go back as far as 1880, had made an undisputed claim to be the world's oldest and largest manufacturer of fishing tackle. The town has long since been regarded as the centre of the British fishing tackle industry. Business flourished, and the product range steadily expanded.

Through the sixties and seventies, progressive expansion saw the establishment of the Company's own operations in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands and the UK.