by Stefan Duma

£110 596 pages. Available from www.anglebooks.com or www.turnerandlowkes.com

WHEN I received this impressively sized, lavishly illustrated tome and sat down to read it, my first impression was twofold. One was of awe, tinged with annoyance: awe that the author had clearly invested an enormous amount of time, dedication and research into putting this book together.

And annoyance? That after four decades of writing catalogue descriptions for a plethora of “Nottingham-style” reels, it rapidly became clear that my knowledge about the evolution of said reel and its creators was about as scant as a burlesque dancer’s attire.

One of many original pictures scattered throughout the book: FWK Wallace fishing the float on the river Trent.

What is clear from the off is that this book has been written with both personal passion and deep knowledge.The passion clearly emanates from the author having spent his formative years walking the same streets where the great makers of the era peddled their wares, and casting a line on the same rivers, canals and cuts.

I do love a book written from the heart rather than simply drawn and collated from a mass of sterile data. And heart this book certainly has. As you begin the journey of discovery of the familiar (and not so familiar) names of those who took the evolution of the “Nottingham” reel to its zenith, it’s hard not to hear the ethereal echo of horses’ hooves on the cobbles and smell the coal smoke on the air as you delve into the lives of these most influential of angling figures.

What you won’t find is a “quick skip” approach to theTrentmen. This book is very much a deep dive into the lives and personalities of these pioneering Midlands tackle makers and anglers.

From the early brass reels of William Dann to the familiar models of Dingley and Slater, Duma’s chronologically laid out approach is an often lengthy and enlightening, chapter by chapter, analysis of each of these prominent characters, with much cross-fertilisation of their thoughts, influences and actions woven into the text along the way.

As with most facets of the angling world, it is soon very clear that much debate, disagreement and accusation existed among the Trentmen themselves (as indeed it seems to in every other area of tackle and angling evolution).

I very much enjoyed this in-depth char- acter appraisal and came away with a far better understanding of the machinations and processes of those who sought to take the art of long-trotting the larger rivers and waterways to the next level – which, perhaps unintentionally, really did set the ball rolling for the reel designs of the vast majority of “winches” that we still use to this very day.

What this book will certainly do is raise an eyebrow or two as the author debunks previously accepted myths. I found myself cringing slightly as I read (and re-read) how Henry Coxon did not in fact come up with idea of the Coxon Aerial centrepin after seeing a spoked bicycle wheel.

I cringe because I have lost count of the number of times I have stood in front of a crowd of anglers giving a talk on the development of the fishing reel, and naive- ly spouted this myth But that, I guess, is why we need well-researched books like this. I will end simply by stating that this book richly deserves a place on every tack- le collector’s bookshelf alongside its earlier 2018 companion volume Men of Trent:The Story of the NottinghamWinch.

Neil Freeman