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Johnson Ross TackleJohnson Ross first opened their doors 21 years ago, and have gone from strength to strength in the specimen angling market. With controlled expansion over the years, the shop has grown to a staggering 5500 square feet of floor space, and the store holds large stocks of all the top brands (and some cult brands) in the angling industry. As soon as you walk through the entrance, you are greeted with a dedicated rod and reel display area, with literally hundreds of rods from names such as Free Spirit, Harrison Advanced Blanks, Century Composites, Shimano, Daiwa, Korum, ESP and many more. Along one wall is a well presented glass fronted array of display cabinets, housing reels from all major manufacturers, ranging from your budget reels, through to the circa £500 each Daiwa Basiairs and Shimano Aero Technium MGS.
All items in the rod & reel room are well presented and marked up with prices and descriptions. Unlike a lot of shops, there is plenty of room to have a waggle with rods without worrying about knocking displays over. Also in the same room, is an area that has display options for the superb custom rod building facility that Johnson Ross offers. All of the custom rod options are built by expert rod builder, Vic Gibson, who is well known in the specimen angling world as being one of the very best rod builders and also a very accomplished angler.
Such is the demand nowadays for a custom built rod, Johnson Ross have opened a dedicated web site so that the angler can pick & mix what they exactly want from a rod. This site can be found at http://www.custombuiltrods.co.uk where the angler can choose from either Harrison, Century or Free Spirit blank to suit their needs as well as ring sizes, whipping colours, line clips, handle styles and much more. As you walk through into the main shop area itself, you are presented with a huge array of terminal tackle, bait, books, DVD’s, metalware, and sundry luggage accessories. It is well known that Johnson Ross are behind the hugely successful Matrix Innovations brand, but it is little known that they offer a custom made metalware facility, where you can purchase any of the Matrix Innovations metalware exactly to your requirements.
It goes without saying that the Matrix Innovations products take up a lot of wall space in the shop, but Johnson Ross also stock other manufacturers metalware and indicator systems including Century Neville, Solar and Gardner Tackle. The sheer amount of terminal tackle stocked was mind blowing, and if they had not got it in stock, it was on its way to them. Up the stairs to the first floor showroom, you are presented with items such as sleeping bags and covers displayed on the wall space, and upon entering the upstairs show room, you are confronted with a huge display area full of bivvies, bedchairs, chairs, sleeping bags, luggage, unhooking mats and clothing from all the major players in the industry. When we visited the shop, there was just the one bivvy assembled (Free Spirit Tree House) in a corner, but the sheer number of shelters available off the shelf was staggering! These included products from Aqua, Trakker, Nash, Fox, Free Spirit and many more, in stock and ready to purchase. The amount of stock was immense but the room was not overcrowded and allowed the customer to see exactly what was there without having to delve around behind items. The luggage was displayed cleanly and easy to look at, as were the chairs and clothing ranges.
One unique service that the shop offers is reel spooling of the line that the angler chooses. The facility is done by hand on a bespoke machine, and the prices include the line and any backing that may be required. We had a reel spooled up with braid whilst we were there, and the line lay and level were perfect and exactly what we asked for in amount of braid. You may be thinking why let the shop do it when you can buy the line and do it yourself. Well the easy answer is that Johnson Ross carry some HUGE spools of popular lines in stock and these are used on the machine, which means that you only pay for the exact number of metres of line that is loaded on the reel, rather than buying a smaller spool and having line left over that is not enough to put on another reel correctly. Also as the lines are taken off a huge bulk spool, the cost per metre is drastically lower to the customer due to the lower price that the shop has paid for the huge spools. This is one service that we both agreed, we would be making use of in the future.
For more information or to order online, please visit Johnson Ross’ website at http://www.johnsonross.co.uk (please mention UKMatchAngler.com if you do contact them). New for this year, Johnson Ross have expanded into the bulk boilie marketplace, and now have a dedicated website for ordering large quantities of ready rolled boilies from all major manufacturers. For more information on this service, please visit their website at http://www.bulkboilies.co.uk |
One of the most asked for custom options is the shortening of the Patriot Pod bars, and when we were there in the shop, a couple of shortened pods were sitting on the counter awaiting collection.
Johnson Ross also operates a very successful and reliable mail order service through their website, and queries are dealt with in a fast and efficient manner. Should a product be out of stock at time of order, one of the sales team will contact the customer to inform them of this and offer an alternative or answer when the product may be back in stock. No payment is taken for products unless everything is in stock and ready for despatch or the customer has been notified of any shortfalls (and if there is any shortfall in the order, only items that are in stock are charged for unless the customer has agreed otherwise).
All in all, Johnson Ross has it all for the specimen angler. There is some free parking at the rear of the shop for customers, the shop is very easy to find from major routes into Hoddesdon, the huge stocks that are available, as well as all the staff being experienced specimen anglers who have time to discuss your needs and offer advice. It is an understatement that we were impressed on our visit, and will be using Johnson Ross in the future for purchases.