LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2023 - RICKY TEALE (1966 – 2023)
The angling trade lost a true behemoth of our time last year with the sad and untimely passing of Ricky Teale at 57 years of age.
Now, many of you reading this may not have heard of Ricky. But it’s a fact that, whatever style of coarse fishing you favour, you will have used an item of tackle that Ricky helped to develop.
It wouldn’t be boastful to claim that his career in the industry had no equal and likely never will.
Ricky’s time in the angling trade started around 30 years ago when, as a 27-year-old top-flight match angler, he embarked on a journey with the ever-ambitious Dave Preston to transport the then humble Preston Innovations into a major international brand.
Modest beginnings with small tackle items like pole floats, elastics and hooks were quickly followed by bigger and better accessories, as well as carbon items. Ricky’s vision was responsible for Preston’s Onbox and Offbox brands, and Preston was the first tackle company to release accessory items for seatboxes that fitted all leg diameters.
But that was just the start of the Preston Innovations clean sweep. Short Carbonactive rods aimed directly at the commercial match angler were a real ‘game changer’ of a product that has withstood the test of time in terms of design and functionality.
It would also be fair to say that Preston Innovations, under Ricky’s guidance, became the first firm to offer the match angler a complete range of kit, from clothing, to rods and reels, to hooks.
But it didn’t stop there. Ricky also recognised the even bigger mass market for non-match anglers, and set up the Korum brand for the pleasure and would-be specialist angler that wasn’t solely interested in catching carp. A brave move indeed, but one that was to give a whole new meaning to angling, as the ‘Korum angler’ was founded.
The number of chairs alone that Korum has sold is unimaginable – well, unless of course you were Ricky Teale.
Ricky also helped consolidate the Avid Carp and SonuBaits brands under the Preston Innovations umbrella.
By 2011 it was time for a new challenge. So when Fox International boss Cliff Fox approached Ricky for a senior role in his company, Ricky readily accepted the offer.
There were many business changes that Ricky made during his tenure at Fox that helped to turn the firm into the successful enterprise it is today.
But his major success would surely prove to be the launching of Matrix, forged using the now proven Teale factor, which quickly turned Matrix into a household match angling name.
Later in his career, around 2017, Ricky was to be reunited with Preston Innovations, which had by then been sold by Dave Preston for £16 million. But under the management team of WC Bradleys, who also owned Browning/ Zebco, Ricky found the corporate guidance of ‘tackle by committee’ to be tiresome and challenging for someone more used to entrepreneurial zest – as, of course, he was.
So, when Daiwa came calling around 2020, Ricky was to take up a new position as the firm’s European Sales Director. This proved to be his final position in what must surely be the most illustrious and distinguished career ever in the fishing tackle trade.
‘MY FRIEND RICKY’ BY ANGLING TIMES TACKLE EDITOR MARK SAWYER
Ricky Teale and I came into the fishing tackle industry at around the same time 30-odd years ago. Our paths had already crossed numerous times on the Midlands canals, especially when Ricky travelled down south to fish in my area with his Silstar Izaak Walton team.
I can still recall one such meeting when he turned up at a match on my patch clutching a fistful of ghastly two-tone coloured pole floats produced by a company called Preston Innovations. “Never heard of them, Rick!” I said – that was soon to change.
Our friendship grew, slowly at first, but it became evident that we had many similar beliefs on many things in life.
We trusted each other’s judgment and our friendship became everything that a true friendship should be. We talked almost every day. Ricky was honest and trustworthy, and at times rib-splittingly funny with his mischievously sharp, dry sense of humour.
Now, something that Ricky Teale wasn’t was tidy. This was a man who, with shirt tails hanging and shoe laces undone, could make even an empty room untidy.
It’s easy to say that someone is or was a good man, but in Ricky’s case this was oh so true. No sides or arrogance, no anger or malice borne, loving and generous in nature, he will be sadly missed by so many.
Special thanks to Paul Boothby and Les Thompson.
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