Tackle bank
Donate your old fishing gear — or take some, for free
Rods at the back of a wardrobe, a reel nobody has wound in ten years, half a box of hooks. Give them to the tackle bank. We check every item, list it on this page, and hand it to the next angler who needs it — for nothing.
Almost every angler owns more tackle than they fish with. A rod gets upgraded and the old one goes behind the coats. A relative dies and leaves a holdall nobody in the family knows what to do with. Somebody tries sea fishing for one summer, buys the whole outfit, and never goes again. None of it is broken. All of it is doing nothing.
And on any evening of the year there is somebody on the breakwater at Barceloneta or the Port Olímpic wall working with a €20 supermarket kit — a rod too stiff to feel a bite, line thick enough for the fish to see, hooks three sizes too big for anything that lives here. They are not going to catch, they are going to conclude that fishing in Barcelona does not work, and they will be wrong.
The tackle bank is the exchange between those two people, and it runs in one direction only: in for free, out for free. Nothing here is sold, nothing is auctioned, no fee is taken at either end and no commission is skimmed in the middle. It is not a shop and it is not a swap meet.
There is a second reason, less obvious and more urgent. Fishing tackle has no honest disposal route. A carbon blank cannot be recycled in any kerbside sense, a reel is six materials bonded together, and monofilament line takes centuries to break down while remaining exactly the right shape to kill a gull or a turtle. Passing gear to somebody who will use it is not a nice gesture on top of throwing it away. It is the alternative to throwing it away.
The third reason is the one that made this page worth building. Fishing here is a solitary business — a few hundred metres of wall, everybody spaced out, nobody talking. Handing a working rod to a beginner is the fastest way we know to turn that into something more like a community: they catch something, they come back, and in two seasons they are the one with a spare reel to pass on.
What happens to a rod you give away
Four stages, and none of them involves a till.
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It sits in a cupboard
A rod that got replaced, a reel nobody wound in ten years, a box of hooks from a summer that never repeated.
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It goes on the bench
Flexed, wound under load, washed of salt and greased. Perished line off and away for disposal, rusted hooks out, a tip ring on where one is missing.
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It goes on the board
Described honestly, priced at nothing, claimed by the first person who asks and collected in person.
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It catches somebody their first fish
Which is the entire point, and the moment an evening on the wall stops being a disappointment and starts being a habit.
And when they outgrow it, it comes back and starts again with somebody else. That is the whole model.
On the board right now
No rods on the board yet
We have not made the first collection yet, so at the moment there is genuinely nothing here to give away. The day a rod, a reel or a box of tackle comes in and has been checked over, it goes up on this page and somebody takes it home.
Two things help, and both take a minute: tell us what you are looking for, so the first thing that arrives can go straight to somebody who needs it — or have a look in your own cupboard, because the first rod on this board has to come from somewhere.
What we take, and what we cannot pass on
Almost everything in the right-hand column we will still take off your hands — we just will not hand it to another angler. The one thing that helps nobody is deciding for yourself that your gear is not good enough and putting it in a bin.
| Yes, please | Not onto the board |
|---|---|
| Rods of any length, sea or freshwater, including one with a cracked or missing tip ring — a ring is a two-euro repair and we do it here. | Rods snapped through the blank. A broken carbon blank cannot be made safe, and the splinters it sheds are genuinely dangerous. Bring it anyway — the rings, reel seat and butt cap become spares. |
| Reels that still wind, even ones that grind or howl. Most are a strip, a clean and a drop of grease away from working properly. | Reels with the spool or the bail arm gone, unless it is a common model — then we hold it and pair it with the next donation of the same one. |
| Unopened spools of line, and braid of any age — braid does not perish the way nylon does. | Old monofilament off a reel. It perishes invisibly and breaks under load, and losing a fish to somebody else’s ten-year-old line is a rotten introduction. Bring every scrap of it regardless: we dispose of it properly, and loose line is the single most lethal thing an angler leaves behind. |
| Hooks, swivels, beads, split shot, leads, feathers and rig components, loose or boxed, in any quantity. | Rusted hooks. Rust eats the wire from the inside and a hook that straightens on a good fish is worse than no hook at all. They go for metal recycling, sharp and separated. |
| Floats, feathers, lures, jigs and squid jigs, however chewed. A squid jig with the paint off still catches — the fish are keying on the shape. | Lures whose trebles have corroded to the point of crumbling. We keep the body, fit new hooks, and the old trebles go in the sharps box. |
| Tackle boxes, seat boxes, holdalls, buckets, rod rests, head torches, landing nets and drop nets. The unglamorous half of an outfit is the half a beginner never budgets for. | Anything that only makes sense as a commercial method — trammel nets, longlines, fish traps. Recreational fishing here is rod and line, and this is not a way around that. |
| Waders, wading boots, waterproofs, gloves, and buoyancy aids that are still in date. Kit that keeps somebody safe on wet rock is the most valuable thing on this list. | Automatic lifejackets with a fired or expired gas cylinder, handed on as they are. Donate them and say so — they get re-armed and re-tested before anybody wears one. |
| Unhooking mats, forceps, disgorgers, measuring boards and knot tools — everything that gets a fish back in the water quickly. | Gaffs, and spearfishing gear of any kind. Spearfishing is licensed separately in Catalonia, under its own rules and its own medical certificate; it is not something to hand to a stranger through a web page. |
| Books, charts, old club magazines and hand-drawn mark maps in Catalan, Spanish or English. Somebody’s notebook of where the fish were is worth more than their rod. | Bait of any kind, frozen or otherwise, and anything else perishable. We have nowhere to keep it and nobody should be handed it. |
How it works
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1
Tell us roughly what you have
The form at the bottom of this page. A sentence is enough — "two beachcasters, a box of hooks and something I think is a reel" is a perfectly good description. No photographs needed, no inventory, no account. If you are not sure whether something is any use, send it in the message and ask: the answer is almost always yes.
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2
We arrange the handover
We reply within a couple of days with a time and a place in Barcelona. If it is a carload, or you cannot carry it, we come to you anywhere between Castelldefels and Mataró. Small items can be posted, and we will send you the address. Nothing is charged for any of this, and nothing is charged to the person who receives it either.
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3
Every item is checked, cleaned and described honestly
Rods are flexed along their length and the rings checked for grooves. Reels are stripped, washed of salt, greased and wound under load. Perished line comes off and goes for disposal; hooks are checked for rust one at a time. Anything that needs a repair gets it, or gets listed as needing one. Nothing is ever described as better than it is.
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4
It goes on the board on this page, free to claim
Listed with what it is, what condition it is in and what it is good for. First person to ask gets it, and collects it in person. Anything nobody claims within three months goes to a school or a club that will use it, or is stripped for spares and recycled — it does not sit in a garage being a good intention.
The terms of taking something
Six of them, and they are as short as they look. There is no application, no proof of anything, and no waiting list.
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It is free
Genuinely free. No fee, no deposit, no delivery charge, no suggested donation, and nothing on this page leads to anything we sell. If somebody asks you for money for gear from this board, it did not come from us.
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One outfit at a time
A rod, a reel, line and enough terminal tackle to fish with. Come back for the next thing once you have used this one. It is not rationing — it is that there is one of most things.
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Say what it is for
Not a means test, and we will never ask for proof of anything. It is so we hand a beginner a forgiving rod rather than a nine-foot beachcaster, and so somebody teaching three kids gets three of something rather than one.
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Do not sell it on
Somebody gave this away so that another angler could fish with it. Reselling it takes that from them. Anything from the board that turns up on a marketplace is the end of the arrangement for the person who listed it.
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Bring it back when you outgrow it
The whole thing only works if it circulates. When you upgrade, the rod that taught you comes back and teaches the next person. That is the entire business model, and it is why this page exists.
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Under 16s come with an adult
An adult claims and collects on their behalf. Hooks, lead and a nine-foot lever are not a handover to make on a street corner to somebody on their own.
Hooks, lead and line: handle these properly
Box or tape your hooks before you hand anything over. A carrier bag with loose hooks in it is how somebody who is doing you a favour ends up in A&E. Trebles especially: tape them to a piece of card, points inward.
Lead is fine to donate and not fine to handle casually. Leads, split shot and old sinkers are all welcome — they get reused for decades. Keep them away from small children, do not let anybody carry them loose in a pocket, and wash your hands after sorting a box of them.
Never bin loose monofilament, and never leave it on the rocks. Nylon line is the single most lethal thing an angler leaves behind: it does not break down, and it holds exactly the shape that traps a gull’s leg or a turtle’s flipper. Bring us every scrap, including the tangles at the bottom of the box. We cut it into short lengths and dispose of it properly, whether or not any of it is worth passing on.
Take the batteries out of anything electronic. Head torches, bite alarms, fish finders and line counters all arrive with a corroded cell in them sooner or later, and a leaking battery ruins the thing it is inside and everything it is packed with.
Offer gear, ask for gear, or both
One form for both directions. Nothing is charged, nothing is sold, and your details are used to arrange this and for nothing else.
Questions about donating and claiming
Is the gear really free, or is there a catch?
Really free. Nothing is sold, no fee is taken at either end, no commission is charged, there is no advertising on this page and nothing here is a funnel into the licence service we do charge for. The tackle bank costs us time and a bit of grease, and it is worth it because a coast with more anglers on it is a better coast to fish.
Do I need a licence to take gear from the board?
No. Owning a rod needs nothing at all. You do need a recreational fishing licence before you use it anywhere in Catalonia, including from a beach, and it is worth sorting that out before you collect rather than after — the rules page explains what you need and the licence page explains how to get one.
Can I donate if I am not in Barcelona?
Yes. We collect anywhere between Castelldefels and Mataró, and anything that fits in a box can be posted — tell us in the form and we will send an address. Visitors who bought a cheap outfit for a week and cannot fly home with it: this is exactly what to do with it rather than leaving it in an apartment.
What condition does it have to be in?
Working, or close enough that an evening at a workbench fixes it. The table above is the honest version, but the short answer is: send it and let us decide. The commonest thing that happens on this page is somebody apologising for a rod that turns out to be the best thing on the board that month.
There is nothing on the board. Is this actually running?
It is new, and the first collection has not happened yet — so at the time of writing there are honestly no rods to hand out. The first ones will go up on this page as soon as they have been through the bench. It is worth knowing how the board behaves afterwards, too: things are listed the day they are ready to hand over and taken down a fortnight after they go, so an empty board is a normal state rather than an abandoned one. Either way the useful thing you can do is tell us what you are looking for, and we will match it against whatever arrives first.
Can I ask for something specific?
Yes, and it is the most useful thing you can do. Say what you want to fish for and from where, in the same form, and it goes on the wants list. When a donation matches, you get an email. Most gear on this coast is matched that way rather than claimed off the board.
Is my old line worth anything to you?
As line, usually not — nylon perishes on the spool whether it is fished or not, and passing on line that breaks under load is how a beginner loses their first decent fish. As a disposal problem, absolutely: bring it. Loose monofilament kills seabirds and turtles for decades and there is nowhere sensible for a household to put it. We take every scrap, including birds’ nests and leader offcuts.
Do you check that what you hand out is safe?
Every item, one at a time. Rods are flexed along their length, reels are wound under load, hooks are checked for rust, perished line comes off and goes for disposal, and lifejackets are re-armed and tested before anybody wears one. Nothing snapped, rusted or perished goes on the board. Where something needs a repair we either do it or list it as needing one — never both silently.
What happens to the things nobody takes?
After three months on the board it goes to a school, a club or a youth group that will put it in somebody’s hands, and if there is no taker it is stripped for spares and the rest goes for recycling — metal, plastic and carbon separated. Nothing sits in a garage being a good intention, and nothing donated here goes to landfill whole.
Do you want money, or volunteers?
No money — we do not take cash donations, we are not a registered charity and we do not want to become one. Hands are a different matter: if you can service a reel, whip a rod ring or drive a van on a Saturday, say so in the form. And the most valuable contribution anybody makes is taking a beginner out for an afternoon with the rod you just gave them.