According to IYCF, there's a growing world shortage of carbon cloth and "there'll never be a better time to buy a new rod or pole than now"?

Scare-mongering? Responsible reporting? Cynical attempt to boost tackle sales for Matt Hayes? What do you reckon?

Guests - this sponsored link will vanish when you log-in. Click here to register for free.

After the forest fires in Portugal I suspect that there will also be a shortage of top grade cork too.

It's not as though they have to mine the stuff, is it?
If there's a temporary shortage no doubt China will fill that gap by this time next week.

According to IYCF, there's no other species in the UK, other than Carp.
Needless to say, I cancelled my subscription after a year and sold all my magazines to the local Tackle Shop.
Loads of great adverts though...

For once they may be right (up to a point). There IS a global shortage of carbon fibre because of several high demands at the moment. These are:

The building of the Airbus A380 and Boeing's 7E7 Dreamliners.
The proliferation of windfarms. All windfarm blades of 50m or more are made of carbon fibre.
The expansion of the Chinese economy.

However this shortage is bound to be only short term because, as pointed out, you don't have to mine the stuff and where there is a high demand for a product, suppliers will emerge to provide it. The way I see it, the price is more likely to come DOWN as more producers get up to speed.

One of the reasons they cited was the devaluation of the Chinese youen. Erm... that will actually make the product cheaper in the UK, as we needs less pounds to buy the requisite number of youen.

The downside is that oil price rises will impact upon production and freight costs. But are we to be taken for fools by the tackle trade and their lapdogs who reported this without questioning the obvious error of fact.

OK, I have often been criticised for slating the angling press - but this sort of thing does rather justify my standpoint.

It's understandable that carbon fibre costs are increasing due to market forces, but to embellish this with misinformation is totally unnecessary.