Middy Reactacore XQ-1 10m pole review

AS ANGLING Times tackle editor I fish quite a lot – because testing rods, reels and poles, unless I’m beside the water, isn’t really going to mean much, or give you any idea of how they’re likely to perform.

I only mention this because of late, whether I’ve been out fishing weekend matches or testing new gear, it’s become abundantly clear that we have a lot of new anglers in our midst.

There they are, all perched on shiny new seatboxes or immaculate fishing chairs, waving around newly-acquired poles and rods and, more importantly, all catching a few fish. It’s wonderful to see, and I hope the trend continues for the rest of the summer and beyond.

When wearing my official Angling Times regalia I always try to have a quick chat with anyone who looks even remotely like a new angler. I’m not being pushy, I just like to see how they’re getting on, maybe give a bit of bait away, or chat about rigs and tactics. 

Let’s face it, talking fishing is easy, but by its very nature our sport is quite complex. Things like spooling line on to a reel, or what hooks and bait to use, are taken as read by the seasoned angler, but they’re not obvious when you’re new to the game.

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On the right lines

That said, having spoken with quite a few chaps and chap-esses, it seems most have been well advised by their mates on the kit front. Tackle shops too, to their credit, are sending people to the banks with the gear they need, without having them over.

Fishing tackle that comes at a sensible price is what most newbies are looking for, which is where this week’s live test item, Middy’s new Reactacore XQ-1 10m pole, hits the spot.

In my opinion it’s absolutely perfect for the rookie pole angler looking to spend a few hours bagging decent-sized carp on their local commercial.

Price-wise it’s bang on the money, and it’s tough enough to withstand the odd over-enthusiastic moment or two. Rather handily it comes with a couple of spare top kits, and it’s not heavy or unwieldy, which is a big bonus if you’re not used to handling a pole.

Off to the lake

The live test was on Decoy’s day-ticket Lou’s Lake, just the sort of place to cut your teeth on the pole. On warm days you can get bites up in the water, down on the deck and at all points between, not to mention the margins. Nor are the carp in this lake particularly fussy about what they eat, so little more than a tin of corn and a bag of pellets will suffice.

Most importantly, Lou’s has stable and level fishing platforms, with plenty of flat open ground behind you to position your pole roller – as a rule of thumb, around four paces behind your seatbox will be spot-on.

You could thread pretty much any size or type of elastic you wanted through the XQ-1’s top kits, but I kicked off the session up in the water, using a middle of the road 10-12 hollow elastic in conjunction with the short Phantom (grey coloured) top kit that comes inside the pole. 

The Phantom top kits

The Phantom top kits

I also rigged up the spare Margin Phantom top kit with a super-heavy 20-24 hollow that would hopefully seriously test the pole’s section strength and pulling power later in the day when I targeted the margins.

Heavy elastic would test the pole’s strength

Heavy elastic would test the pole’s strength

In truth is it hasn’t got quite the rigidity needed for slapping shallow rigs up in the water, but it’s stiff enough to allow you fish shallow comfortably enough using a catty and pellets. At its full length, just under 10m, it didn’t feel top-heavy or suffer the dreaded top kit pole droop.

The super smooth S-Slide finish made handling quick and clean, and it fairly sped over the roller. It didn’t suffer from sticking section joints, nor did they come apart other than when I wanted them to.

To assemble sections without pushing them on too far or hard, slide them together, give the uppermost section half a turn to the left or right and they’ll lock together but come apart again easily when required.

Middy Reactacore XQ-1 10m pole sections

Middy Reactacore XQ-1 10m pole sections

Having caught quite a few half-decent fish shallow, it was on with the heavy elastic top kit to see if I could drag a margin munter from its lair. No problems, and I didn’t think there would be, as the top kits carry a 30 elastic rating. 

One thing that makes the new Middy Reactacore XQ-1 stand apart from any other pole I have fished with at this price is its stiffness. Most power poles of this ilk have an action that spreads across the top four or five sections, and I’m sure that readers have seen lots of bendy pole shots on these pages.

However, take a longer look at the inset pole image and you’ll see that this model stays straighter than the road to perdition when a fish is hooked – basically it’s very, very strong.   

This is a very strong affordable pole

This is a very strong affordable pole

Price: £275 (but shop around)

Middy ReactAcore XI20-3 Competition Match Carp Pole

Middy’s new Reactacore XI20-3 Competition Match Carp Pole might well be named the WIndbeater, such is its resilience in a gale.

Weighing in at just 980g at 13m, it’s no telegraph pole, making it viable to handle when the wind is blowing. So, with a late January gale bending trees double, I made my way to Nottinghamshire’s Janson’s Fishery for the live test. 

On this very exposed venue, only one peg on the entire complex had escaped being lashed by the wind, and that was on Munroes Lake which has a central island at around 13m and is well stocked with carp and F1s.

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The X120-3 has a bit of a luxury feel to it when you get it out of the bag, with a lovely S-Slide micro-ground fast-shipping finish, Spineline alignment on each section, and dome-topped joint protection on the fourth, fifth and mini butt sections. A DNS distance numbering system for precise feeding and fishing is a nice touch and importantly, the pole has a satisfyingly solid feel to it when you give those key No4 and No5 section walls a squeeze. .

The four Max22 Karp 2-kits come with CKB colour-coded PTFE bush-fit bands so there are no dramas when it comes to cutting back tips too far. Who among us has not committed this irreversible sin in the past? Reinforced pull-it areas on the top kits can be drilled before being fitted with side pullers. 

So, rigged up and ready to go, I popped a small pot on to the end of the pole – acid test number one. If a pole is sloppy, it’ll bounce all over the place when shipped out and you’ll be left with no bait in the pot when it reaches its destination. That didn’t happen with the new Reactacore XI20-3, even in the wind. 

This is a hard feeling to put into words, but if a pole is too heavy, you’ll feel like Atlas with the world on his shoulders. Here, even when the pole was dragged way off course by rogue gusts, it took little effort to manoeuvre it quickly back into position again. Likewise, lifting and dropping the rig was hassle-free. The stiffness of the pole makes lifting delicate floats almost instant, with little bounce and even less droop as the pole is raised – and the same applies to hitting bites.

Winter F1s and carp often only give you a tiny ‘dink’ on the float, and if the pole is bending like a fiddler’s elbow you’ve got no chance of connecting with the fish. A short but solid lift with this pole though, and I was laughing. Even when a bite was missed, the rig was straight back in and fishing again, such are its recovery values, even at its maximum 14.5m. 

But what about the strength, I hear you ask? Well, the XI20-3 has plenty of it, and although no real brutes were caught, battling the wind was a great test in its own right. When a gust came, holding the pole deliberately against the blast taught me all that I need to know about the X120-3’s power. Sometimes, you can only turn your head away and wince as carbon meets the wind and pray the pole doesn’t come off second-best, but my early fears about whether this one would end up in several more pieces than it arrived in were soon kicked into touch.

In fact, as the session wore on I was actually beginning to enjoy myself, free of those fears. 

The pole is strong, seriously strong, and impressive in all aspects and I would even go as far to say that you could fish it down the edge in the summer in search of big doubles without any danger.

For your typical all-round mixed commercial fishery, it’s bang on the money!

Verdict: This is the second Middy Reactacore model that I have fished with in recent weeks, and I have to say how impressed I am by their technical attributes. 

Spineline alignment sees the pole always fished in its optimum position, while numbering on the butt sections, and depth line markers, do come in handy once you’re fishing. 

The XI20-3 should be a much sought-after pole for any club match angler who spends much of his time on commercials. Its top kit package offers plenty of flexibility and scope. Spare top-kits and sections, incidentally, will all interchange with Middy’s previous Shock-Core and Nano-Core pole ranges. 

If your fishing sees a lot of work at around 8m to 10m with the occasional visit with a longer length to fish against an island, the X120-3 is the one to pick – and when the wind blows it will certainly be first out of the holdall!

Price: 13m £999.99, 14.5m £1129.98. But shop around for even more competitive prices