SOME people have all the luck. That's a common enough saying but, personally, I have my doubts: I tend to believe that people make their own luck in most of life's endeavours - which is why I respect Geoff Trigg quite a lot and envy him not a little.

You see, the only other job I would ever have wanted would be to run a fishing tackle emporium, the grown-up version for me and three million other registered British anglers of a kiddie being given his own sweetie shop. Much less fattening too.

And as this is the time of the year when I do my best to support real shops - as opposed to bland national chains - I thought it was right to pay Geoff a visit in one of the few fishing tackle shops left in the area.

Geoff and I sat in his cramped office at Gee Tee Angling Supplies in Briggate, Silsden, and counted on our fingers the towns and villages which have lost similar establishments in the past decade or so.

It is a sad list: Skipton, Settle, Kirkby Lonsdale, Ilkley, Knaresborough, Greengates and Bingley came to mind instantly and there are probably more.

Some time ago, I had to go to either Lancaster or Kendal to buy my somewhat specialised fly-fishing gear - until Geoff Trigg had the guts to do what I never dared.

That was eight years ago when Geoff was riding quite high in the competitive world of big business.

A trained chartered accountant, he had risen to be sales director of Alfred Green, a county-wide chain of timber merchants, after learning the trade at their Skipton branch opposite the railway station (now Magnet).

He had a fat pay cheque, a generous pension to come, a company BMW and an expense account. He also had a wife and three children either at college or about to go. But he was fed up.

"It was a pretty important time of life for both me and the family," he says. "I had done quite well in business and my life was pretty well mapped out. But I was bored, jaded and I needed a change."

A lifelong fisherman - he started his angling career at the age of six dangling a worm in the Leeds-Liverpool Canal - he took himself away fishing whenever he could because, as he says and I whole-heartedly agree, it is the ideal antidote to work-created stress.

And then the fishing tackle shops he used regularly, one in Water Street, Skipton, and the other in Ilkley, closed down. Was there here an opportunity to make a living from his hobby?

Being the man he is, he did some market research and plumped for a rented shop in Silsden because he thought he could attract trade from Skipton, Ilkley and Keighley.

It worked, and he was able to buy his present bigger premises, even though he faced the same competition that had sent all those others toppling like dominoes: mail order.

As he explained: "All the fishing magazines are bulging with ads for tackle at prices no single trader could possibly compete with - they buy their stock at huge discounts.

"But I have always thought that fishing tackle is a very personal piece of equipment. You want to handle it, try a few casts with it, in the way that a golfer wants to swing a new club or a cricketer feels the weight of a bat.

"Men feel very strongly about their hobbies, and they want the best they can afford. You can't get the feel of a rod or a reel from an advertisement, however glossy. Then there is the other thing: service.

"You can never give too good a service. You can't provide it by mail order. What's more, you can't chat face-to-face via mail order with another angler who spends both his working life and leisure hours with tackle - I am a certified instructor with the National Federation of Anglers.

"I have been fishing for almost 50 years, and have been running this business for eight of them, so I hope that I can pass on some useful advice, particularly to people just taking up the sport."

As if to prove a point, a lady came in with a broken reel belonging to one of the men in her life. Geoff didn't stock that particular make, but he found an old piece from another range that fitted - and worked. He repaired the reel there and then - for free!

He grinned and shook his head as he came back to the office: "I'll never make a fortune here. I've known that from the very beginning. But we get by and I am doing something I love - so what more can I ask?"

Indeed. Merry Christmas, Geoff.