Designed by an Engineer that Angles

When I was twelve I spent most of the summer at the River Irvine placing bets with the other lads on who would catch the first fish of the day. When I finally hooked my first brown trout I recall the excitement - all eyes were on me. None of us had a landing net back then and as I tried to drag the fish onto the bank it managed to escape.  I will never forget that day!

When I was fourteen I spent most of my time at the local scrap yard gathering spare parts from motorbikes and as my collection grew I decided I would build one myself. I recall running up and down the old coal mine slagheap on my ‘new bike’ feeling a massive sense of achievement.  

 

 

This was when I decided I wanted to be an engineer and was over the moon when I was offered an apprenticeship with Massey Ferguson. It was there that I became fascinated with metal - at how versatile and how strong it was.   

 

Shortly after finishing my apprenticeship I started my own business and throughout my career I have done many things that I am extremely proud of. I was contracted by the MOD to develop and manufacture the tooling system which produced the drive propellant for the Exocet missile. I developed the air bag system we have in our cars today.  And I invented the SFA portable lightweight seven aside goalpost system which involved creating not only the manufacturing production line and the product itself but also creating a British standard for safe portable goalpost systems.  

 

Come 34 I took my family on holiday to Florida and whilst there my son asked if I would take him fishing.  I had not picked up a rod since that summer spent on the banks of the River Irvine and had no idea that this simple request would rekindle the excitement I’d experienced back then.  My son was ten at the time and I am proud to say that to this day he is still, like me, hooked! 

 

When we returned from that holiday we joined the local angling club and spent many happy hours, on the rivers, banks, lochs and fisheries in Scotland. A group of us started going to Baden Loch Estate in Sutherland once a year and one man, Bill Aitcheson, would always do the driving as well as ensure we had enough supplies of food and drink.  He was an absolute gentleman who was sadly diagnosed with cancer in his late 60’s.  Muscle was removed from his left hand side which affected his strength.  However, he did not let this stop him from angling even though he had difficulty landing his fish.  It was because of Bill that I decided to design a perfectly balanced, lightweight, very strong landing net.  When I presented Bill with his new trout gye net he was ecstatic and even more so when he easily landed his next catch. 

 

The net created a buzz with my fellow anglers at Troon Angling Club and came to the attention of the then Managing Director of Wilko Sports who set me the following challenge. “If you can design and build a salmon gye net weighing less than one kilo that can land a salmon in excess of 30lb it will be by far the best salmon net on the market.”  He believed this to be an impossible challenge and was delighted when I presented him with a salmon gye net that weighed a mere 780gms and had the potential to land a salmon in excess of 40lb.