FROM THE WORKSHOP: H CLAYTON 'FENLAND' 1946
When I was a teenager, swingtips were all the rage. I always found them tricky to cast with but persevered with them because all the successful matchmen were using them and using match tactics to catch specimen fish was my thing; or it would have been if I'd been any good at it. Swingtips were an invention generally attributed to Jack Clayton of Boston in Lincolnshire, a tackle dealer about whom I knew nothing else but whose name and address always had some kudos attached.
Fast forward a lifetime and a new, old, obsession with vintage fishing rods and a mysterious urge, having seen one or two advertised, to own an original Clayton built rod. When one called the 'Fenland' came up for sale I put my hand in my pocket where eventually, from way down in the depths I retrieved enough cash to pay for it. I think the name caught my imagination. I love the fens and a rod designed to fish those sluggish, clear, lily-filled and reed-lined waters seemed an attractive thing.
There was no getting away from it, this rod had lived a hard life but then it didn't look like it had ever been a piece of fine art. Most of the rings were red rusty; corroded away even and the whippings were sporting a wide range of dirty, shit brown threads of different thicknesses, none of them fine. The cork was not good, in fact it was crap; pitted, chewed by rats and coated with random patches of old varnish. The last couple of inches at the tip were badly bent and I suspected, broken. I, short it was not good, but it did have something in abundance; patina.
The overall colour was a deep, dark mahogany due to the thick layer of aging varnish; made even more beautiful upon closer inspection by dark streaks of filth, lighter worn patches and time. Lots of time and I know this because Jack Claytons father Harry had signed, addressed, and dated the rod 1946 in fine Indian ink script. I was now in a quandary. A full restoration would make this wonderful rod, quite literally, a pale shadow of its former self; sans history, that would be scraped off and binned, sans any charisma whatsoever and either sans elegant script or with a dark brown patch scarring an otherwise new rod. It wouldn't do.
In the end, I replaced all the rings bar the clear agate tip, whipping them in black with red trimmings. These were on inspection and as best I could tell, the original colours and not bright enough to jar against the brown background. I sealed the script with PVA and keyed the old varnish just enough to take a couple of new coats which were then rubbed back to level it off as best as I could. This preserved everything, the script, the staining, the shadows and all that wonderful patina. A final thin coat and all was well. That terrible handle was filled, new sections let in and blended with the old and that was it.
An old cane rod, stripped back and refinished to as-new condition is a thing of beauty, no doubt about it, but it becomes a new rod built with old materials and that is just fine. I have loads of them that I either bought like that or restored myself and they are fantastic to use but they are now bereft of their true history. Of course they may, rarely and in extreme cases, come with some documentation that proves that somebody famous owned them or used them to perform some remarkable feat of angling but the scars from generations of actual fishing are all gone; scraped away in pursuit of some idealised perception of perfection. Their actual history is recorded in the varnish lying on the workshop bench waiting to be swept away forever and that is a terrible shame.
Fast forward a lifetime and a new, old, obsession with vintage fishing rods and a mysterious urge, having seen one or two advertised, to own an original Clayton built rod. When one called the 'Fenland' came up for sale I put my hand in my pocket where eventually, from way down in the depths I retrieved enough cash to pay for it. I think the name caught my imagination. I love the fens and a rod designed to fish those sluggish, clear, lily-filled and reed-lined waters seemed an attractive thing.
There was no getting away from it, this rod had lived a hard life but then it didn't look like it had ever been a piece of fine art. Most of the rings were red rusty; corroded away even and the whippings were sporting a wide range of dirty, shit brown threads of different thicknesses, none of them fine. The cork was not good, in fact it was crap; pitted, chewed by rats and coated with random patches of old varnish. The last couple of inches at the tip were badly bent and I suspected, broken. I, short it was not good, but it did have something in abundance; patina.
The overall colour was a deep, dark mahogany due to the thick layer of aging varnish; made even more beautiful upon closer inspection by dark streaks of filth, lighter worn patches and time. Lots of time and I know this because Jack Claytons father Harry had signed, addressed, and dated the rod 1946 in fine Indian ink script. I was now in a quandary. A full restoration would make this wonderful rod, quite literally, a pale shadow of its former self; sans history, that would be scraped off and binned, sans any charisma whatsoever and either sans elegant script or with a dark brown patch scarring an otherwise new rod. It wouldn't do.
In the end, I replaced all the rings bar the clear agate tip, whipping them in black with red trimmings. These were on inspection and as best I could tell, the original colours and not bright enough to jar against the brown background. I sealed the script with PVA and keyed the old varnish just enough to take a couple of new coats which were then rubbed back to level it off as best as I could. This preserved everything, the script, the staining, the shadows and all that wonderful patina. A final thin coat and all was well. That terrible handle was filled, new sections let in and blended with the old and that was it.
Today I took it out for a test run and it was rather nice, I have to say. It has its faults; the ferrules are not the best and despite re-aligning the rings to reduce the droop, the cane is a tad eccentric but it really was very pleasant to use. The tip wasn't broken, just bent and after heating and straightening it has turned out to be probably the gentlest of all my float rods and its built cane blends nicely into the various grades of bamboo below it. I used a 1.3lbs hooklength and a loaded peacock waggler with a fine pole float antenna that carried just 2 no 8s and 1 no 10 down the line. It cast beautifully and handled a mixed bag of feisty hybrids, scrappy perch and one or two nice roach with consummate ease and not a little style.
An old cane rod, stripped back and refinished to as-new condition is a thing of beauty, no doubt about it, but it becomes a new rod built with old materials and that is just fine. I have loads of them that I either bought like that or restored myself and they are fantastic to use but they are now bereft of their true history. Of course they may, rarely and in extreme cases, come with some documentation that proves that somebody famous owned them or used them to perform some remarkable feat of angling but the scars from generations of actual fishing are all gone; scraped away in pursuit of some idealised perception of perfection. Their actual history is recorded in the varnish lying on the workshop bench waiting to be swept away forever and that is a terrible shame.
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