Solar Tackle

Founded in 1987 by Martin Locke, Solar Tackle is one of the longest standing, true original carp fishing brands.
Born out of a need to get on the bank mid week, Martin was working as a metal engineer in the early 1980s, where he produced stainless bankware for his own fishing during his lunch hours. Quickly he had more requests from angling mates to make them some of the same than he could build in his lunch hours.

Having recently joined a busy water Martin needed a way to get on the bank mid week for his best chance at his target fish, and so, on the verge of being sacked anyway due to making too much fishing gear during work hours, Solar Tackle was born.
Starting out in his mum’s garage in Kent, the plan was to fulfill all orders by Sunday so that he could nick a couple of days early in the week on the bank before getting back to work.
 
From little acorns do giant oak trees grow, as Martin says, and so it has been for Solar Tackle. Over its 30+ year history Solar has been responsible for designing and producing many cult and market-leading products. The Globetrotter, Sod and Worldwide pods, its renowned buzz bars and banksticks, original Monkey Climbers and the Bow Loc landing net through to the current P1 stainless, Titanium and Advanced Rig Gear ranges.
 
Not stopping at bankware, Martin took Solar in to carp baits in the 1980s as well. Fishing some of the country’s renowned carp waters, including Savay Lake and Redmire Pool, Martin and some of the countries best carp anglers of the day started to develop Solar baits. One of the first was the original red and yellow Savay seed mixes, making Solar one of the first companies to make seed mix baits easily accessible to carp anglers. So successful was the Savay Seed Mix, that it still makes the base for our seed baits to this day.
Sourcing ingredients and developing baits quickly became part and parcel of Solar Tackle and this led to Solar’s best known bait in the Club Mix, which helped Martin land a World Record 92lb mirror in January 2010, has landed numerous country records and countless PBs.
 
The Solar story continues, and on its 30^th anniversary, in 2017, Solar Tackle stepped in to new territory again with a range of high-end bedchairs, chairs, luggage and bivvies under the Solar SP banner.
 
“At Solar we are anglers that design and build gear for our own fishing,” says Martin. “It’s no secret that this has been the strength of Solar from the start, and remains to this day. We are passionate about what we do, and we believe that our passion comes through in the products that we release for our customers.”