Leslie Moncrieff

[Vagabond]

Cranfield:

Vagabond, I witnessed Mr Moncrieff do just that at Dungeness.

So did I - must have been the same day - funny we didn't recognise each other

[chesters1]

nor me ,mind you dungerness in the 60's was a different place to now,very spooky and difficult to get to, on weekends a strange light show from a distance with miriad lamps and packed tight with anglers ,mid week only the bravest ventured there ,i suggest it was the lights that drew the fish in nowadays its all headlamps

[Vagabond]

chesters1:

 

wasent he just a competition caster and his "name" available as with most people in the headlines available to anyone with the cash to buy it :

Richard Walker..... to name but a few i doupt if any designed the items their names reconmend

Chesters - Les Moncrief was not just a competition caster, he fished a lot - particularly from boats. He designed an offset boat rod called the Sidewinder - Chevin still has one, which I borrow when fishing the Indian ocean out of Perth W.A. An excellent rod still.

 

I can't comment on most of the other people you mention, but let me assure you Dick Walker designed and built many split-bamboo rods - both before and after he became "famous". He also wrote a book "Rod Building for Amateurs" in which he gives detailed specifications of many of his rods - AND explains the principles of rod design.

 

He was also an engineer who designed and built at least two centrepin reels. Plenty of other items of tackle too - bite alarms, Arlesey bombs and triangular landing nets to name but a few. Look for "Drop Me A Line" by Walker and Maurice Ingham at your next car boot sale.

 

[ 01. February 2005, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

[jim doyle]

richard walker designed and built rods. they were and still are works of great signifigance. He also devevoped the first carbon fly rod and was probably responsable for the concept of modern angling!!!!!!!

[chesters1]

got drop me a line ,will have a peek ,look out for "design" and substitute "improve" after all a centerpin is just a centerpin unchanged in design for a 150 (odd) years ,landing nets the same and the lead weights maybe have also been used in the past as for rod building and design what is there to design :confused: rods are fat one end and thin at the other (a bit like twigs) you can make them thicker or thinner or put more/less rings on them but i suspect all variations have been tried in the past just as i have made rods and know doupt others have two but "design" no improve maybe ,carbon is a material and most probably the blanks were imported from america the missing eyes and their spacing hardly could be called design as the finished artical is no different to a cane one but in lightness and composition the ring spacing is more or less predetermined by the blank itself ,i suppose you can design the lable or whipping layout but thats about all ,maybe the "design" WAS the lable and the money making behind it

are modern cars designed look below the body and its unchanged since victorian times a engine with seats ,the body is still a body but improved from the victorian car it does nothing more than it did then

not too sure when the ringless rod was "designed" but i remember a ringless american lure rod from way back maybe mr moncreiff "improved" it for sea use

 

[ 01. February 2005, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[Vagabond]

chesters1:

rods are fat one end and thin at the other (a bit like twigs) you can make them thicker or thinner or put more/less rings on them

I once made an East India Bamboo beachcaster that was fat BOTH ends. Used it with cuttyhunk line and brass paternosters on Dover Breakwater - needed a pound of lead, but the East India never flinched. When I replaced it with Longbow and Squidder, I turned the bottom joint into a conger gaff, and the topjoint into a curtain rail

[chesters1]

i have mentioned the mercury trick on here before but it turns the thin end at least weight wise into the thick end AHH the days before the nanny state

[chevin]

quote:

---

wasent he just a competition caster and his "name" available as with most people in the headlines available to anyone with the cash to buy it :confused:

As Vagabond says, Les Moncrieff was a lot more than that. The reverse taper rod was, I believe his idea and design but of course Hardy made the rod for him. During those years there was a company retained by Hardy's which was "The Moncrieff Rod Development Company" which consisted of Les, Dick Walker, and F.J. Taylor. All of the rods they designed were produced by Hardy's and there were some very successful rods too. The Sidewinder series came from that company, as did the Tourney. I still have a Tourney in very good condition and it is a very good rod too but when picking it up you realise just how light today's materials are. If you were to weigh it you would need to use bathroom scales!

 

All three of those anglers had input in to most of the things they reccomended even though the original idea might not have been theirs. I remember Dick being insitant that Ken Morrit fitted a bale arm roller that worked to the Intrepid Elite. There were probably other things but that is the only one that comes to mind - it was, after all, a long time ago.

 

The first glass carp rod built to Walker's specifications was wholly built in England. There were two proto types made, one just a standard hollow glass rod and the other had internal buttresses along its length. I have the standard one and it is still catching fish to this day!

 

Perhaps more people these days are prepared to put their names to tackle purely for financial considerations, but I can assure you that those three anglers were not of that ilk and for them to put their names to anything they had to be involved in either the design or the basic idea.

 

[ 02. February 2005, 08:26 AM: Message edited by: chevin ]

[Jim Roper]

chevin:

I can assure you that those three anglers were not of that ilk and for them to put their names to anything they had to be involved in either the design or the basic idea.

Or were at least confident that the product was worth their endorsement.

 

I was still on a bike in the early 60s but dads of fishing mates had seen the Moncrief demos.

Chesters1 would still have been on a tricycle!

[jim doyle]

the origanal fly rod blank was not american, it was" built" in the aero space develoement unit in farmborough,hence the hardy farmborough name. Yes most tackle "design" is a developement of the past but some developements are such a great improvment that they eclipse the origonal.