STEALTH IS an essential tool in the armoury of successful anglers as they stalk the riverbank for wary specimen fish.

Glasgow Angling Centre boss Paul Devlin has similarly crept up on the angling trade to land himself a multi-million pound business.

The 40-year-old from Cumbernauld now controls the largest fishing tackle retail outlet in Europe and an internet and telephone ordering business with customers in every continent.

His 80 staff, most based in Glasgow, generate a turnover of £8 million a year, a figure that has been growing at between 10-20% per annum.

Based in a 30,000sqft warehouse in Possil, north Glasgow, the business also boasts a field sports outlet in the city's east end, a tackle shop in Cumbernauld and a warehouse in Scunthorpe bought out of receivership in 2003.

Devlin is also about to open a new £2.1m, 11,000sqft store in Hull, his first major retail development in England, where he expects his formula of competitive pricing over a vast range of goods to bring greater financial catches.

Devlin started fly-tying as a 10-year-old. His first fish, a pike, was caught on the Forth and Clyde canal at Dullatur. Later he started selling his home-tied flies at Cumbernauld Angling Club events in the town hall, 10 for £1. He left school at 16 to work in local tackle shops before taking up a career in the Inland Revenue as a civil servant. He opened a used fishing tackle stall in 1986 and soon found it was making £1000 a week, so resigned his job to pursue his tackle business full time.

He then spent £80 a month renting his first shop, PD Tackle, in Cumbernauld, which he still owns today. In 1995, a £30,000 Bank of Scotland loan funded the purchase of what was then Scotland's largest tackle outlet, close to the Barras market in Glasgow. At the same time he expanded his mail order business and repaid the loan in four months.

Devlin reveals that fishing flies are still the largest individual money-spinner out of the staggering 60,000 items of stock that he carries. "Buy for 5p, sell for 60p. You can't go wrong," he smiles.

Market competition is intense, however. On a European scale, the Tackle Trade Association says 2900 companies are vying for a share of an annual spend worth 25 billion (£18bn). Yet in under 20 years, Devlin's business has become one of the top three retailers in Europe.

"I never liked owing anyone money ever. In fact when I received my very first invoice from a wholesaler, I took settlement discount of 5% for paying within seven days. I still do that today with every single invoice," he says.

Internet and phone sales now account for 50% of overall trade, with customers as far away as Argentina and New Zealand. He has also diversified into house building and has a development in Ruchill, where he expects to release 24 flats for sale next year.

Despite his success, he is strongly critical of the lack of investment being made by government and tourism agencies in the Scottish sport fishing industry.

"Golf, football, tennis, wrestling, boxing all seem to benefit from funding. Yet it is angling which is the biggest participant sport and by comparison receives very little. Scotland has such huge untapped potential. It is so short-sighted."

Although Scotland is to host the World Fly-Fishing Championships in 2009, Devlin believes the numbers who would travel to Scotland regularly given the right level of promotion are enormous.

For now, though, his focus is getting Hull up and running and using that to cast his net further south when he feels the time is right. He has no plans to expand overseas; simply to consolidate and provide an unrivalled service, perhaps enjoying more moments of high business satisfaction like being the only supplier in the world able to deliver 600 pairs of neoprene waders in 24 hours to the US Air Force. That, and fulfilling his long-term ambition: "Retire early and die old."

If others followed his enterprising ways, success might just catch on.