On Saturday I was out on my travels locally and I spotted a new sign saying The Bait Warehouse in a local garden centre. It was late afternoon and the shop was shut, so I was unable to visit until this morning. It is situated in the Bugle Nurseries, Upper Halliford Road, Near Sunbury, Middlesex. YW17 8SN and has only opened this week. They sell boilies, pellets, particles, groundbait mixes and additives and will be of particular interest to any local carp or barbel fishermen.

The prices seem reasonable, certainly cheaper than the local tackle shops and they soon hope to be selling maggots and terminal tackle such as hooks, rigs and leads. It will also be possible to sell your unwanted tackle here, with them acting as agents for you rather than buying the stuff from you. I will definately be back for some pellets.

Typical prices are £80 for 10kg of Mainline boilies and £39 for 25kg of 4-8mm halibut pellets with betaine. Dried hemp comes in 20 kg bags and costs £18.30 or £23.50 ready prepared. Their telphone number is 01932 788478.

I also visited The Tackle Exchange in Walton, a place to which I have contributed more than my share of their profits and spoke to the owner, another Martin. He told me about some deals he was offering on some end of line Fox barbel rods but I managed to resist this time as I am not in the market for any more barbel rods. Should you want a Fox Barbel twin tip that normally retails at £100 he is selling the last few at £59.99 or two for £100 or for the same price you can have the Barbel Float rod or two.

He also has some Shakeapeare Odessa Avon twin tips which should be £66 for £28.99 and some Valour match rods-which I use for coaching, excellent rods- for £29.99. All seem very good deals if you haven’t got to have the very latest , this years models. His telephone number is 01932 242377, he also has an excellent selection of centrepin reels and as usual tried to sell me another one. Not his time Martin, anyone would think I’m a “tackle tart”!

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