Welcome to the second rigged and ready social media roundup where we will be bringing you all the best and most exciting news from our community. In the UK, February is the coldest month of the year, and this has resulted in a less productive month of fishing than what we saw in January. However, anglers remained persistent and committed in fishing through these cold and even snowy weeks meaning a good variety of fish has still been landed. With the snowdrops sprouting and the days getting longer, spring is just on the horizon and trout season isn’t far away! But for now, let’s focus on February, and what a great month it’s been for the brand.
First and foremost, we attended our first fishing show! Founder Andy Rigg (middle) was joined by Harry Crossley (left), George Lamb (right) and daughter Rachel (not pictured). Being part of the
Great Northern Angling Show was a fantastic experience, and we relished the opportunity to fly the flag both for the compact style of fishing we believe in, and the Lake district. As the event was predominantly dominated by carp-oriented businesses and consumers, we anticipated a somewhat mixed response. Carp fishing is a sub-discipline of the sport often characterised by huge amounts of equipment – an ideology we are trying to combat. However, people’s open-mindedness was refreshing, and we were met with an extremely positive response. A huge thank you to everyone that came to say hello, to talk fishing, and even to buying their first travel rod.
Given the cold climate this February, we thought it appropriate to make everyone reading this slightly jealous with our first catch report. Graham from ‘
G’s Tight Lines’ jetted off to the Caribbean with his work in search and rescue. Pictured, we can see that his
X5 max looks well suited to life in Trinidad! As our rods are so compact, we are seeing more and more people taking them abroad in their suitcases as travel restrictions begin to ease!
Graham joined YouTuber ‘KosM’ fishing for Tarpon, and had great success with the
X5 Max. On his very first cast, he hooked into a fish of around 6/7lb! Tarpon have a reputation for being extremely hard fighting, and this fish gave a great account of itself! There is a video of the very moment live on our Instagram page. A moment Graham won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Now bringing things a bit closer to home, let’s see how the UK contingent have been getting on.
This stunning and sizeable Zander was caught on the world traveller rod. As these fish aren’t native to the UK, the catch and release of these fish is, at times, controversial. The environment agency often facilitates the electrofishing of canal systems to remove the species from the water, making a fish of this size both a rarity, and extremely impressive. This Zander was caught on a hair rigged section of eel, a cracking effort and a pleasure to see caught on a rigged and ready travel rod.
Sticking on the theme of toothy predators, it’s great to see Martin from ‘
Vildmark.co.uk’ out braving the elements on his packraft. There’s something special about fishing in bad weather, and it undoubtably makes success all the sweeter. Exemplified here, he caught a lovely winter pike on the
predator rod. This rod has dual functionality between bait cast and spin, as well as interchangeable tips for different lure fishing cast weights. If you look closely, you’ll see the colourful strike pro guppy in the picture. This rarely fails to perform for Martin, and if you’re in the market for a new pike lure you’d be wise to check this one out.
We have also seen some cracking chub caught this month. The fish that springs to mind is this one that was caught by ‘
@thecarpingbiker’. What a powerful fish! Typically, when you think about an
unhooking mat the first fish that comes to mind is a pike. However, we are seeing more and more species being measured and dealt with on our folding travel unhooking mat. Good fish care is of the upmost importance, and seeing anglers give more and more species the respect they deserve is a very promising sign for the future of angling.
While many of you reading this may only have one travel rod, or one rigged and ready product, some of our customers like to go for the full package! Anthony Wood recently substituted most of his full-size rods for a much more compact solution. If we include the contents of this bag, this set up includes a folding net, a folding unhooking mat, an X5 adventure travel rod, sunglasses, rod rests, terminal tackle for sea, predator, fly and coarse fishing!
Who says fishing tackle has to be cumbersome? We look forward to seeing what March has in store, and we will check back in with you soon! In the meantime, feel free to get in touch via email or Instagram with any enquiries or catch reports!
