Middy Baggin Machine CS24 Synaptic Series 13m
PAY AROUND
£199.99
The original Middy Baggin Machine pole, introduced in September 2005, sold more than 3,000 units and went on to become the company’s best seller.
This latest reincarnation, the Baggin Machine CS24, has many of the no-nonsense characteristics of the earlier model, but is built from a completely new Synaptic carbon that’s designed to withstand all the pressures of heavyweight carp hauling.
Face it, this is a specialist tool that won’t appeal to every angler. However, if you’re catching big fish from snaggy swims, or need something that can take a bit of heavy-handed abuse without splintering into a thousand carbon shards, this may be just the pole you have been looking for. At around £199 the price is a steal, and I’d expect you to find it even cheaper if you shopped around a bit.
The CS24 comes with two spare top-2 kits with huge diameter tips that are ideal for fitting large-bore PTFE bushes without the need to cut them back. That, along with three full elastication kits and a mini extension, adds up to more than enough pole to tackle your local commercial fishery with confidence.
The pole is rated by Middy to a maximum of a whopping great size 24 elastic, but I would suggest that there is yet to be a laccy created that would damage this thick-walled thunder stick.
I loaded the test pole with reasonably powerful size 10 hollow elastic threaded through its sturdy top-2 kits before heading off to Oakfield fishery, a small commercial on the Bucks/Oxfordshire border where the carp in its Swallow Lake grow Godzilla-like.
As you assemble the granite-like sections of the 13m Middy Baggin Machine CS24 Synaptic it soon dawns on you how well-built it is – brute force and brawn combine in a pole so strong it could probably drag a charging elephant up a flight of stairs… backwards!
Unfortunately, all that muscle comes at a price, and in this instance the payback is in the pole’s complete lack of stiffness. It is all a bit too bumpy and bouncy at its full 13m length, but note that it is also available in 11m and 9.5m versions, which should be much easier to handle.
No matter, for margin or close-in tactics with heavy lines and elastics the 13m pole has its place. If you are given to the odd ham-fisted moment or wayward strike, its wall strength makes it very forgiving.
Basically the Baggin Machine does the job for which it was intended, and for that reason alone it’s worth more than a second glance from any would-be commercial fishery carp angler.