Well here we are 25 years down the road, the Rags was started just for a few friends and somehow we ended up with anglers all over the country (and abroad) loving the Rags and wanting my carp garments!!!
I'm just your average carper, totally obsessed with it and have always loved the history and the great anglers sharing their adventures so you can imagine the buzz with anglers like Terry Hearn, Jim Shelley, Dave Lane, Oz, Chilly, JMac and many more wearing the Rags. I was the young man that was avidly reading about these anglers in the mags and glued to books from Terry,Dave, Jim, Nigel... My 1st copies of "In Pursuit of the Largest" and "Obsession with Carp" have long been in the bin since becoming unreadable, covered in sun tan lotion, salmon oil and falling apart from many a soaking!! I've spoken with these guys, had a chin wag, I even fished on the CP with Uncle Jim! They are great anglers and great guys and I'm totally un embarrassed to say I kind of hero worship them, lol.
I'm a floater/stalker (I get very confused fishing out in the pond) so my hero has always been Jon Coxhead, the Yateley stories of him pellet flicking in the edge and catching them all always inspired me, so imagine my delight when we found out he would like a Rags top!!! You can't make this shit up!!
Over the years we've seen the Rags feature in some great fish, "The Burghfield Common", "Two Tone", "Heather the leather", "Dustbin", "Crock", "Bernies Lin"," Baby TripleRow" and many many more!!
But really the journey is what it's all about, the Rags has led to soooo many friendships, some good anglers, some good people and some simply good fun to be with.
Looking at the pic of Dan with "Bernies" I really should add that along with the great friends you also make friends for life, extra special friends, ones you would do simply anything for knowing they would do the same for you. Agro, Lord Bath, DannyBoy, BoomBoom, Rabbit and more recently for me the CerneyBanx boys. That's not to say that the 100s of friends along the way are not good friends mind, lol.
So I'm going to do a blog here every so often, like back around 2000 when I wrote for BC mag, it will be more questions than answers. I've been at this game long enough to know I know very little.... it's a funny game, in most sports you compete on an even playing field, a set time, changing ends to let the best man on the day win, carp fishing is so different. We of course have the most gifted leading the way like the names above but we also have so many giving it the big one when really they are just average Joe's stacking the game in their favour so they can look good and then tell us all how to bloody do it!
My blog will be more about the mistakes I make along the way, the frustration's, the lows but more importantly the fun and friendships we hopefully gain!
Perhaps once in every while their will be a high, a capture that all those lows magnify and you can be happy with me...... at the end of the day it's what keeps me going "EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY"!!!!!
RagsRob
