it happened to me many years ago, they took every bit of tackle I owned, it was back in the days of the old close season and happened in the first week of the season, needless to say the hook wallets were crammed full of pre tied hooks, the float box was full of hand made floats, something like 400 floats went, things like bait waiters were not commercially available so had to be made, and with my first match not a week away I was more than a bit miffed, ok my mates rallied round and a trip to Horizon Tackle at Redditch to order some custom built rods got me partially sorted.
As I made my way to my peg I looked like a novice rods tied together with string, a small home made seatbox/creel and the rest of my few bits and pieces in a carrier bag, I overheard another club angler point me out as a no hoper, after about 3 1/2 hours he was about right as two small dace were my only catch, but a change from feeder to a heavy bomb brought about an instant change with a couple of stretched maggots typical of bream, and with the end peg angler suddenly catching a skimmer the game was on a repositioning of the rod saw the swing tip, remember them? lift passed horizontal and the first of 5 bream was on along with a few small skimmers for 17lb and a clear match win.
On their way back to the car park the other club asked what had won our match I quite enjoyed telling them it was the noddy who was never going to catch and that my weight would have won their match as well.
No the police never caught any one trips dont supossed they even tried their only advice was to keep an eye out around the local park pools and second hand shops. They did leave my wellies perhaps they were the wrong size
