| About Us | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Our service to you ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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We would like to be the
best specialist fishing tackle Please let us know how we're doing. |
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| A Short Story | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Once upon a time ... ... there were three bears ... oops! Wrong story! In the summer of 1968, two little boys called Kevin and Gary sat by the lakes in Sutton-at-Hone wondering where their next maggot was coming from. They both thought that a tackle shop within walking distance from the lakes would be a great idea. Of course they grew up and went their different ways. But to cut a long story short (for the sake of all the girls involved) - in 1983 they once again found themselves thinking about the same idea, this time with a little bit (and we mean a little bit) of money in their pockets. This time nothing distracted them (girls aren't interested in boys with no money) and they bought a very small shop (yes - even smaller than the one they've just moved out of!). By the time they'd fitted the shop out they had £700 left to buy stock ... and they got laughed at! Did it put them off??? Well yes! But not for long. The rest is history, as they say ... On a serious note - there were a few people who supported us then. We've never forgotten and always been grateful. Dave Roberts of Pegley Davies and Ted Barlow of Aiken are two we remember particularly. |
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| The real world ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Anyway it didn't take long for us to pick up some momentum. You may know that originally we didn't set out to create a carp tackle business. Our first intentions were to service the local lakes, as we'd imagined years earlier, with maggots, hooks and floats! During the first year, we also discovered that sea anglers passed through Sutton-at-Hone. However, for some strange reason, people fishing for carp kept appearing in the shop. What were we like?!! We hadn't realised how famous the Darent Valley had become (over the previous 15 years no less!) for carp angling. There were anglers like Lee Jackson, who we'd never heard of, trying their best to extract all the carp from the lakes. How long had we been fishing there? ... Sorry, what did you say? We're not the kind to make excuses ... BUT ... we did have a different angling background then. We'd spent our early years chub fishing the River Darent and tench fishing the local lakes. |
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| Since then ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Never let it be said that we don't learn quickly(!), so we are now lucky enough to be running a carp angler's paradise. We moved into a larger shop in '86. The extra room allowed us to increase our range of services. We started the mail order business, which has taken on a life of it's own! We were also able to start holding many parts in stock, so that servicing and repairs could be completed quickly in-house. Eventually the shop began to burst at the seams. Although it meant that when you walked in you thought you'd walked into a carp angler's Aladdin's Cave, it's wasn't letting us show you everything we had! It was also dangerous for our health when Roy tripped over something for the third time in less than an hour! There was only one thing for it - we had to move again! So in June 1999 we moved into much larger premises. We took a bit of a risk because the place seemed so huge - we admit to misgivings about ever being able to fill it. As it turned out, the response, which was amazing, lasted and we need never have worried. The result of our customers' loyalty is that we have now filled every available space with high quality tackle, bait, equipment and clothing. We received our highest accolade the first time a customer walked in and said "This is like and Aladdin's Cave!" We knew that was one of the things customers liked best about the old shop and it was our aim to achieve the same feel here. Please come and visit us if you can and experience it yourself - walls packed from floor to ceiling with all the specialist tackle you will ever need. See visit us for more information about our current premises. |
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| The team ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lee Jackson has been with us since 1990 and has dedicated himself to what he calls 'the best carp shop in the world'! He works so hard (between TV appearances!) and we appreciate the difference he makes. Thanks mate! The rest of the shop staff (Peter, Kev B, Dan, Gary D, Kelsey, Jim, Mick, Martin, Colin and Clive) are a bunch of hard workers who's range of experience means that there's always someone who can answer a particular question on any aspect of carp and specialist angling. While they're keeping shop customers happy, Sarah, Tracy, Maria, Jayne, Deb, Caroline and Pauline are working hard to make sure all the mail order customers receive their goods in A1 condition as fast as possible. Goods Inwards is now looked after by Scott and Steve, while Dave Thomas and Lee Roberts turn out very high quality work in the Repairs department. Also Russ, Bradley, Nick, Dan H and Sam work part-time around their studies. Jackie and Ruth make up the rest of the team. Jackie's been with the business from the start and we couldn't have done it without her! She also catches carp when she turns her attention to it. Ruth is a more recent recruit and so far can't claim any catches (no Ruth, we don't count tiddlers in the River Darent when you were 8). Whatever their catch record, our finance, shop and mail order systems really are the business thanks to them. |
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| And finally ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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As a last word (for now), thank you very much to all the customers who have supported us over the years. We know we must be doing something right because there are so many of you. And thanks for your letters, comments and magazine articles that let us know how we're doing. We are proud of our reputation and work very hard to maintain it. We will do our best to make sure you continue to get the highest quality tackle and advice when you need it. Kevin & Gary Peet |
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