Maver Signature Pro 900 fishing pole
COMMERCIAL PACKAGE
16m pole fitted with Match kit
10 Powerlite Power kits, slotted & bushed
Cupping kit and cups
Bi-Conical Mini Extension
Fighting No4 and No5 sections
Two No4 sections
Short No4
Holdall and tubes
STANDARD PACKAGE
16m pole fitted with Match kit
Four Powerlite Power kits, slotted & bushed
Two Match top-4 kits
Two Match top-3 kits
Cupping kit and cups
Bi-Conical Mini Extension
Fighting No4 and No5 sections
Short No4
Maver is poised to introduce three new Signature Pro poles to its portfolio, including the Flagship Signature Pro 900.
This 16m marvel has everything you could wish for, and then more besides. Quite simply it’s the most beautiful pole ever to come out of the Reglass factory in Italy. The most technically sophisticated Maver pole of all time is graced with a strikingly elegant black Suncore anti-friction finish that allows you to ship in and out at speed in all weathers.
This unique finish incorporates toughened epoxy resins and Nanolith technology for added durability. For the technically minded, the Signature Pro 900 is built from new STER resins interwoven with an incredibly fine honeycomb metal structure that’s ingeniously impregnated into the pole’s surface. In everyday angling speak, the end result of this is super-strong section wall strength.
This flagship model, as you might expect, comes with a very comprehensive kit package that includes the quite superb Maver Powerlite Power top kits. These substantially reduce the pole’s overall weight while contributing perfectly to its overall rigidity and strength. This makes it man enough to tackle 99 per cent of modern commercial pole fishing scenarios.
For heavier, hollow elastics the Powerlite kits are reinforced with additional carbon banding and come ready fitted with a quality PTFE side puller slot. They also have factory-fitted internal PTFE bushes, and feature Magic Step and Fusion carbon technologies.
It doesn’t stop there – the pole’s third, fourth, fifth and sixth sections all boast Maver’s innovative Teflon joint system that helps cut down on carbon-to-carbon friction and reduce wear. The Pro 900 also comes with fighting fourth and fifth sections, which are built to withstand the stresses of fishing down the edge, or when short-range paste or pellet tactics are called for.
A more than useful Bi-Conical mini-extension can be fitted on to the ends of the larger butt sections to avoid possible elbow damage, and – as with nearly all the latest top-end poles being sold these days – the Pro 900 comes with a choice of Standard or Commercial kit packages. Searching around the net, I find that Benwick Sports in Cambridgeshire has the pole available with a bespoke river kit package too.
So what sort of performance can you expect from a 16mm carbon tube that’s going to set you back around £2,999.99 of your hard-earned? Well, obviously it’s as stiff as a frozen snake, and every bit as good at its full 16m as it is at shorter lengths. The lightweight Powerlite top-2s provide an instant response with little discernible tip recoil – the snake awakes, making the pole viper-quick at the business end.
Although I spent a few hours catching carp and big F1s from Decoy Lakes’ picture postcard-pretty Willows Lake, it struck me that the pole’s superb shipping qualities, ease of joint breakdown, tip-speed, lightness and balance would have been well suited to running a long line down a river. Don’t take that to mean that it’s not powerful enough for commercials, because it so is!
Maver has undoubtedly thought long and hard about where and how this pole should perform. Basically it’s beautifully balanced, as rigid as an Eskimo’s flagpole, and blessed with an enviable lightness and ease of movement that would run Darcey Bussell close in the deportment stakes.
Response is crisp and there’s strength to burn, basically putting the new Maver Signature Pro 900 among the top 10 poles currently available.
THE VERDICT
Once again Maver has come up trumps with its best-ever pole. The carbon build is almost frightening in its complexity, but at the end of day this is a very serious piece of match fishing equipment that rightly earns a place among the world’s best.
Ideal for commercial and natural waters, it is a true all-rounder, more than capable of turning in a highly polished performance in any situation.
PAY AROUND
£2,999.99
Mark Sawyer
Browning Zero-G F1 Plus 16m pole
THE PACKAGE
16m Sphere Zero-G pole
1m Sphere extender section
Square ergonomic pole protectors
Reversible pole protector to fit sections 6 and 7
13 x 2/1 Sphere Duo 3.9mm and 4.5mm Multikits
Two short C/3 sections
Full length D/4 section
Cupping kit
Xitan multi-pocket holdal
The new Browning Sphere Zero-G F1 Plus 16m is a simply stunning fishing pole.
As ever, Browning is ahead of the game when it comes to pole-building, and full marks to whoever came up with ‘Tactile Precision Points’. These are raised areas on the butt sections that you can feel as you ship out, enabling pinpoint accuracy when feeding and fishing without the need to look down for painted markings.
Then there’s the ‘Multikit’ top kit that can be used conventionally at 2.5m or as a 1.75m one-piece kit without any loss of pole length. To those clever innovations you can add a new metre-long Extender butt section which either takes the pole up to its full 17m, or offers different length options when fishing against islands or features. Finally, special versions of Browning’s unique SEPPS square pole protector sections make fishing at longer lengths and in windy conditions stable and safe.
The Sphere is built from the highest quality Japanese carbons to provide the optimum marriage of weight, stiffness and strength. No wonder Browning claims it will out-perform rival flagship poles in all these respects. As you can see from the image, the pole at its full 16m length is beyond poker-stiff. And on one of the wildest, windiest, wettest days of the year the Sphere still turned in a blistering performance.
An assortment of big F1s and carp from Decoy’s Beastie Lake never stood a chance against my short line pellet tactics. Interestingly, Browning doesn’t specify an elastic rating for the Sphere. Instead the company claims that it should cope with any situation where a conventional top-end pole would be the tool of choice.
In case you think Browning’s reticence on the subject is a bit of a cop-out, you can forget any notion that this pole is all six-pack with no real poke. Rigged with hollow size 10 elastic through the 1.75m top kit, it coped admirably with hard-fighting F1s and carp to around 6lb, even as it was flung around unceremoniously by the gale-force wind.
What’s more, due to lack of space behind me, it had to be unshipped twice before I netted the fish. Potentially very tricky – but the Sphere’s non-stick joints, over-wrapped and banded on its high-wear sections, made the task a doddle. There were times during the live test when my heart was in my mouth, notably when the wind blew with such gusto that the pole took on a snake-like shape. With a decent fish attached to the business end it was being put under severe stress, but I had no need to worry.
I wouldn’t suggest that this pole is ideal for crunching out a netful of really big fish. Instead the Sphere has sublime poise, balance and lightness at any length. Arguably stiffer than any pole currently on the market, it has an instant response tip speed with minimal visible recoil or bounce. No wonder many top UK match anglers have splashed out the cash in return for near-perfection – the Zero-G really seems to defy gravity!
THE VERDICT
Other than having to send it back after the live test, there was nothing I didn’t like about the new top-end Sphere Zero-G pole. It’s stunningly stiff, quick and lightweight at 16m. It ships like a dream, and the Tactile Precision Points along the butt sections really do what they claim to. The square pole protectors add an extra dimension when you’re fishing long, or in strong winds, providing you with something comfy, strong and reliable to hang on to.
PAY AROUND
£4,399
Mark Sawyer
Daiwa Match Winner Competition C5 16m fishing pole
TECH SPEC
All Match Winner poles developed using the same mandrels plus section alignment system
Top kits pre-bushed with UK-made PTFE bushes and pre-bore wrapped for side pullers
Slide Easy matt paint on cosmetic sections
Daiwa ITS tape finish on sections 5, 6, 7, 8
All poles come with high-grade mini extension fitting sections 9, 10, 11
Supplied with cupping kit and cups, holdall and tubes
Daiwa Match Winner Competition poles. A new range unmistakably from the Daiwa stable with butt sections resplendent in the eye-catching silver livery we've come to associate with its flagship Tournament and Airity models.
Staying in line with their thoroughbred counterparts, all new Match Winner poles have fully interchangeable sections. This lessens pain in the wallet area, should you wish to upgrade to a higher spec pole. Daiwa hasn’t skimped on the spares packages either – even the 13m introduction-level C1 comes with two Power top-3 kits, a short Daiwa Phex extension (giving the pole a tad more length than stated), and a cupping kit.
The top-of-the-range 16m C5, the pole on live test duty, is supplied with a whopping four Power top-3 kits; a Match kit inside the pole; cupping kit; two mini extensions that fit on to the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth sections; and a Phex mini extension that takes the pole to its true 16m length. All models are fitted with 3mm (Match) and 4mm (Power) pre-cut pure PTFE bushes, and boast pre-bored wrapped areas for fitting side puller kits. Considering the classy carbon build of these poles, and their generous spares packages, they’re actually a bit of a bargain!
With prices starting at just £499, going up to £1,199, there’s a model to suit most pockets. If you shop around, I bet you can find them all for less than the RRP, too. So much for what you get, but how a pole performs on the bank is what really matters. Where better to start than at the top of the pile with the Matchwinner C5?
This resilient pole has areas of reinforcement only where they are required, keeping the weight right down. This means the fourth and fifth sections, which get the most use, are also the strongest. This is what you might expect from any pole with a price tag of over a grand. But the C5 Competition has that little bit extra – it oozes class, elegance and poise, and reminds me very much of my very first Daiwa Tournament X pole.
Steely rigidity is backed up with superb balance and handling speed to knock out silverfish at a rate of knots. Of course, there’s also ample power to deal with carp of most sizes. This I discovered during the live test at the superb day-ticket Stretton Lakes complex just off the A1, north of Peterborough. The pole does dip a bit at its full 16m length, but not enough to pose a problem. It’s really good at 14.5m, even better at 13m. The two short mini-extensions allow for plenty of tactical flexibility, and as they are thicker-walled than the sections, they will avoid breakages when fishing at shorter ranges.
THE VERDICT
One of the best all-round poles I have handled for some time, Daiwa’s Match Winner C5 Competition comes with a good spares package, plenty of add-ons, and mini-extensions that suit it perfectly to modern day-ticket venues. For my money this 16m pole is reminiscent of the original Tournament X, which is held in dewy-eyed awe by many of the UK’s top matchmen.
Mark Sawyer
PAY AROUND
£1,199 (C5)
Preston Pro Type Carp fishing pole
TECH SPEC
14.5m pole
4 x Roller Pulla Power kits
Cupping kit
Cup and adaptor
Half-extension
Weighs 1,100g at 13m
Preston Pro Type Carp pole. If I had £700 of my own money to spend on a pole I might agonise over which one to buy.
But one thing’s for sure – Preston Innovations’ latest 14.5m Pro Type Carp would be high on my shortest of shortlists. Most of my fishing these days is done on commercials, so I need a pole with an abundance of big-fish stopping power. Nor does it end there. Because I fish all year round, and most places I frequent have healthy stocks of fast-biting F1s that come into the reckoning as the winter draws on, my weapon of choice needs to be stiff and quick enough at its longest lengths to cope with delicate short-line/long-pole-and-pellet tactics.
That seems like a very tall order, unless you’ve got a couple of grand to splash out on a flagship pole. Realistically you can’t expect to buy much more than 14.5m of balanced and user-friendly power pole for under a grand. But it’s not all bad news – most commercials these days respond best to margin, two-plus-two or 13m approaches. A 16m pole is simply not needed. What you want is something well balanced, easy to ship, and fully at home with delicate rigs, light elastics and short-line work.
Naturally, then, Preston’s new Pro Type Carp is right on my radar – it will deliver all that and more. Its lower mass carbon build increases its strength and responsiveness and it feels good in your hands even at its full 14.5m. It boasts reinforced butt sections and joints, section alignment arrows, and an Easy Ship finish that slides through your mitts like a greased grass snake. A generous spares package includes four spare ready-fitted side-elastic Roller Pulla Power top kits, cupping kit with cups, and a half-extension that fits on to its 13m and 14.5m sections.
So, on to the live test at golden peg 6 on Decoy’s Lou’s Lake – the one that wiped the floor with the rest of the field during the recent Winter League final. However, under leaden Cambridgeshire skies whose dark clouds seemed to delight in stopping off to dump a cocktail of rain, sleet and snow over me, it seemed an unlikely place to sit and catch a few. The exposed forward-facing corner peg was being buffeted by a hacking side wind, making rig presentation, feeding and even at times hanging on to the pole something of an ordeal. But when I got it right, plenty of bites were to be had.
At 13m, the pole’s rigidity and unquestionable section wall strength gave me the confidence to lean into the wind, holding fast against the blustery conditions.Even when it was being blown about, the pole-tip remained stiff, and was responsive enough for me to connect with most bites. Most of the carp I caught were in the 4lb-6lb bracket, good weight-builders. And catching them was where the new Pro Type Carp really excelled itself. Look at the main picture and you’ll notice that there’s little linear movement other than along the top four sections. This makes shipping back with a fish on a quick and stress-free operation.
The Preston Roller Pulla top kits that are part of the package are faultless, and can be matched to any type or size of hollow elastic within reason. At its longest 14.5m length it isn’t quite as rigid and quick as it is at 13m, but it’s more than fishable, and would make a great commercial fishery weapon for most match and pleasure anglers
THE VERDICT
Across the board, this second generation of Preston Pro Type poles has much improved build specifications and spares packages over the originals. The new Pro Type Carp is designed solely for use on commercials – stiff but not overly heavy, with good section wall strength. It’s also exceptionally well balanced for a power pole and not at all top-heavy, and it ships flawlessly. The Roller Pulla side-fitted top-2 Power kits that are part of the package are ‘must haves’ and suitable for most elastic sizes.
Mark Sawyer
PAY AROUND
£699.99
Colmic Airon F66 16m fishing pole
TECH SPEC
Colmic Airon F66 16m pole
Eight EC200 top-2 kits
Force-4 section
Three mini half-butt sections
Cupping kit
Holdall
I've fished with Colmic margin poles and rods on several occasions, but until recently I’d never had the pleasure of wielding one of the company’s long poles.
Yet there’s a huge fan club among matchmen for its Italian-made Jolly Floats and Nuclear hooks, not to mention the iconic 16m Colmic X5000 pole and latterly the Airon F55 poles. Its successor, the F66, is on live test duty today. This flagship pole is a hot topic right now on virtually every match fishing website. It’s a full-blooded 16m competition tool, reputed to be able to handle anything thrown at it (almost literally). Light yet ridiculously strong, thanks to high-spec materials and a clever section design, it’s well balanced, with a responsiveness to hit the quickest of bites and the rigidity to tame big fish in less time than it takes you to read about it.
So far so good, but why drain your wallet to the tune of around £2,600? That’s the shop-around price tag, by the way. Live testing a pole of the F66’s pedigree wasn’t easy. It’s so far ahead of what you might reasonably expect it to do; it’s difficult to find a suitable test venue. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, so it was off to the day-ticket Cuckoo Canal Lake at Townsend Fishery near Wisbech.
This is a typical snake lake where fishing just down the shelf in a couple of feet of water in the cold, or tight against the far shelf in warmer weather, will always be a rewarding experience. Both tactics call for just a few inches of line between pole-tip and float, when a gentle lift will set the hook without spooking feeding fish. To do this perfectly requires a pole without bounce or wobble along its top sections.
There needs to be enough mid-section poke to move fish out of the swim without too much of a commotion, and you should be able to lean into the butt sections without fear of them going snap, crackle or pop. Well, in all my years of tackle testing I have never handled anything so uncompromisingly stiff at its longer lengths than the Airon. You feel as though you could lift a decent-sized fish straight out of the water and on to the bank, never mind into a waiting landing net.
These bullish properties are further enhanced by a unique mandrel design in which the 100-tonne, superbly rigid butt section with graphics is installed behind the No8 section to take it to 13m. For a 16m pole, add section No9 behind the butt section, effectively extending its length, and providing it with the added backbone and balance that the superior 100-tonne carbon-built section instils. The pole’s joints are all superbly well reinforced, with enough wall strength to make Hadrian wish he’d used carbon instead of stone.
As for the downside – such as it is – the pole does feel a little wider in diameter on its butt sections than some others, but with all that unbridled power it’s an unavoidable consequence I could easily live with. It still handles superbly, and despite my mini-mitts I never found it uncomfortable to manoeuvre around the swim, even at 16m.
THE VERDICT
Without a shadow of doubt the Airon F66 is THE big-fish pole of the moment, and should be your weapon of choice if you are the least bit reckless when it comes to striking, handling or playing then netting big fish. It will take far more punishment than most flagship models and still come back for more. The Airon is being promoted as an all-rounder, but if you intend to use it for silvers I suggest you invest in a couple of the relevant top kits readily available for this pole from Colmic.
Mark Sawyer
PAY AROUND
£2,999.99
Preston Pro Type 510 fishing pole 16m
PACKAGE
16m pole
Four Roller Pulla Power Kits
One match kit inside pole
One Kupping Kit
One half extension
PAY AROUND
£849.99
The eagerly-awaited second generation of Preston Innovations’ Pro Type poles has arrived.
The new 210, 310, 410, 510 models – plus a dedicated carp pole – boast many impressive new features, while retaining many of the positive characteristics that made the originals so popular among match anglers. These latest poles are lighter, stiffer and more responsive than these, and are said to be stronger and even more rigid. Anglers will welcome reinforced butt sections, section alignment arrows and an Easy Slide finish, while an improved spares package includes pre-fitted PTFE top kits, roller bushes and protective tubes.
The 16m top-of-the range 510 model on live test duty comes in at under a thousand quid, with a suggested price of £849.99 – not to be sniffed at for a 16m pole these days – and having surfed the net I can confirm that it’s available even cheaper if you shop around a bit. It’s got a comprehensive spares package, and comes with enough top kits to make it multi-venue- friendly straight from the holdall.
You get a spare Match kit, ideal for light elastics and silvers, as well as four Roller Pulla Power kits for normal commercial fishery use. To that little lot you can add a Kupping kit with Kups and a handy half extension. Ideally suited to the keen club angler, this pole is very much at home on the smaller ponds, pools and snake lakes that most clubs favour for their matches, where match-sized carp, F1s and silvers are the targets.
With that in mind, the new 510 was taken for its day’s trialling to the picture-postcard Monkhall Fishery (www.monkhallfishery.co.uk). Set in deepest Shropshire, its five lakes are carved into the south-facing side of a rolling valley, with a superb scenic backdrop to your fishing. If you want a day away from road noise, walkers, bikers, boats and general irritations, this is as peaceful a venue as you will find. It also has a café and a small caravan park, and caters for bed and breakfast guests.
Anyway, back to the real reason for my visit. The 10-section 510 pole comes in three pieces – a 13m butt section containing seven sections, including the Match kit which comes with it, plus 14.5m and 16m parallel extensions. During the trial all joints fitted together really well, and came apart without fuss first time, every time. This was despite the wet weather, which often proves the undoing (or the reverse!) of many new poles.
Fished at its longest 16m length there were no annoying knocks, squeaks or cracking noises, and every one of its section arrow- aligned joints felt strong and reliable for the long haul. The Easy Slide finish was clearly evident and played its part in the wet. Shipping damp rain-spattered sections often proves sticky and tricky, but not this time. The 510 handles with a silky smoothness that belies its lightweight price.
At its 13m length it’s fairly stiff and certainly quick enough to hit fast-biting F1s and silvers. However, I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said it handles as sweetly at 14.5m and 16m as it does at 13m. I did, though, fish quite happily with it at 14.5m for most of the live test.
If I owned this pole I would choose my elastics with some thought to the length of its top kits, especially when coupled with hollow elastic. From a size 14 upwards there’s a slightly top-heavy feel reflected in the handling, especially when you have a pot sitting on the top kit. But if you aim at hollows from a size 12 and under, and solids above that, you won’t go far wrong. I haven’t checked with Preston's about the Pro Type 510 maximum elastic recommendations, but I’d have no qualms about threading a solid 16 through one of its Roller Pulla top kits.
VERDICT
A great improvement on Preston’s original Pro Type poles, this new top-of-the-range 510 boasts plenty of key add-ons such as section alignment arrows and an Easy Slide finish. Absolutely bang on the money for the keen club match angler, it’s usable at its longest lengths and would be every bit as good at bagging carp as it would at snatching silvers. What’s more, the spares package doesn’t need further investment to make the pole compatible with a host of venue types.
Mark Sawyer