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Catfish Clonks: No-one
knows exactly when clonking started. Like most things in central and eastern Europe there are 1000+ opinions. One thing is for certain, clonking certainly works and works amazingly well. So well
in fact that on many parts of the Danube it is banned for part of, if not all of the season. For instance in Serbia clonking is only permitted if you are licensed professional fishermen (that
means catching fish for market). Private people / rod anglers are not allowed to clonk for cats which is bizarre considering the professional fishermen can use any method including dynamite.
In the Balkans they regularly hold competitions for all sorts of fishing related things such
as fly tying (where the object is to tie the most realistic fly possible), float making (where the object is to make the smallest possible float hold the largest possible amount of weight) and of
course clonking is no exception.
There are clonking and clonk making competitions so we visited the 15 times world champion
(all Balkan competitions are world championships) and secured a long term supply of his products. These are all hand carved from a single piece of carefully selected hardwood to achieve the
correct resonance with different sized heads for different situations. A large head for bank and wooden boat is used, a medium sized head for use with a plastic / fibre glass boat and a small
head for use with an aluminium boat.
These products are not available from tackle shops in Serbia, they can only be bought from
commercial suppliers who sell nets, traps etc and only on production of your commercial fishing license. All clonks carry the manufacturers mark to identify where they came from. A few hundred
miles north in Hungary everyone is allowed to clonk for cats. Consequently Catfish are nearly extinct in this region. Clonks are also available in tackle shops in all shapes and forms, mostly
commercially made, laminated and of poor quality. We bought what we were reliably informed were the best on the market anywhere in Europe. These are now available for you in the UK. Prices...
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