INTERVIEW
TM: What got you hooked on fishing all those years ago?
JR: The first time I went fishing was with dad on Southend Pier when I was about four or five. I caught a flounder and showed just about everybody who walked past. I started going fishing regularly on my own or with pals, both sea fishing on the shore or the piers and freshwater fishing on local ponds, from about nine or 10. The world was a much safer place then and you didn’t he didn’t give a second thought to going off on your own on your bike or bus to go fishing.
TM: You were one of the pioneers of uptiding back in the 1970s. How did this new technique come about?
JR: Boat casting, or uptiding, as it’s commonly called, came about in the early 1970s. I’d become mates with Bob Cox when he regularly visited the tackle shop in Leigh-on-Sea where I worked as a bait digger. Bob and I became fishing buddies on both boat and beach.
Uptiding began when we both crewed on various local charter boats. One in particular was Arthur Weitzel’s Providence, who operated out
