Preston Innovations response XS90 pole review

Once you commit to owning a flagship pole you’re talking in the region of three grand, so you need to be sure your investment will be a sound one. 

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Never fear – Preston Innovations’ latest 16m Response XS90 pole is one of the best that money can buy. All you need concern yourself about is finding the model or package that suits you best.

Now, I don’t often mention the competition when live testing an item of tackle, but I’ll make an exception in this case because Preston’s new pole is up against some tough opposition in the flagship category. 

In no particular order of merit we have Daiwa’s Air Z, Middy’s Reactacore XK55-3, Browning’s Zero G Sphere, Matrix MTX Ultra 4, Drennan Acolyte Pro, Garbolino UK 1 Accomplice, Maver Signature Pro 1000, Tri-Cast Excellence, Sensas UK Nanoflex 1074, MAP TKS 1001 and Frenzee FXT 6E. Phew! I apologise if I have missed anyone out. 

Each has its own special merits, from stiffness and power through to comprehensive spares packages. I know matchmen are brand-loyal, and tend to stick with what they know and trust, so let me tell you why the new Response XS90 is up there with the best.

For a start you get bucketloads of the finest grade Japanese Torayca carbon in the shape of a stunning 10-piece pole. Following in the footsteps of its Response M90 predecessor, it’s a strong contender for the accolade of ‘stiffest pole ever’.

Changes to the carbons used make all sections stronger and more hard-wearing – although in the case of the M90 they were pretty tough in the first place. 

I haven’t seen my old match fishing mentor and great friend Des Shipp to ask him about the new pole (who said arch-rivals Dorking and Essex County couldn’t be pals?) but it’s my bet that the England ace has played a leading role developing the XS90.

The signs of a master craftsman’s touches are all there in the pole’s performance. It’s phenomenally stiff without feeling brittle, and superbly well balanced at its longer lengths.

I don’t mind if poles of this quality are made slightly heavier – I reckon they perform better and with more stability in the wind, and that’s very important. Commercial carp aren’t much given to chasing a pellet around a peg! Its shipping qualities are, as you might expect, ‘quicksilver’ and, in the right hands, it’s as fast as any pole on the market.

Slip on one of its 2.4m Roller Pulla Power top kits (capable of handling the heaviest of elastics) and the pole has section wall strength and linear flexibility in abundance to quickly tame the very largest commercial carp. 

My live test session on the lump-infested Horseshoe Lake at Decoy Fisheries confirmed the pole’s mettle in every department.

Fishing long into open water with corn at 16m, and despite a nasty side wind, rig presentation remained easy. 

That, teamed with a lightning-fast non-recoil tip action, meant missed bites were a rarity. Even with the odd foul-hooker, every tug-of-war ended favourably, and not once did I get the feeling the pole was being over-stressed, even with fish to 8lb.  

I had a go short on the maggot, where the pole’s Bi-Conical sections that fit on to sections 5-6 and 7-8 gave me the confidence to strike as though I meant it, with no fear of the episode ending in tears and splintered carbon. 

All female section ends have been internally reinforced, while there are now extra weaves on the male joint ends which greatly reduce carbon fatigue and wear. This pole’s real ‘wow’ factor, though, has to be its nonsensical degree of stiffness. 

I have been lucky enough to see and handle poles with this degree of rigidity before, not necessarily in the UK, but let me tell you, they never had any sort of elastic rating and were likely to snap in half in the event of anything more shocking than the sun disappearing behind a cloud.

Take my word for it, in the XS90, Preston Innovations has a very special pole on its hands, and it ought to be in yours too.

Verdict: No-one who has seen or handled the new Response XS90 would argue that it is Preston Innovations’ best yet. It’s sharp as a tack, with the reaction speed of a striking cobra. Built from the finest Japanese carbons, its steely strong sections inspire the kind of confidence that you only get from using the very best. Plus, it comes with the most impressive array of pre-bushed side puller top kits and carbon add-on sections you will find anywhere.

Price: £2,999.99

Preston Innovations 16m Response XS carp pole

This new Response XS Carp pole from Preston Innovations, like its predecessor, is aimed squarely at the commercial match angler.

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Durable and hard-wearing, it’s a tool for bagging big weights and taming powerful carp, while at the same time retaining exceptional balance and responsiveness.

Because it’s built around the same mandrel as all the other poles in the range, all sections are fully interchangeable. This makes it the ideal second pole for existing Response owners. 

An attractive feature of the new XS Carp are nine (yes, NINE) spare 2.4m top kits, including a Kupping Kit. All are pre-fitted with genuine internal PTFE bushes, and supplied with Preston Roller Pulla bushes. These all but eliminate elastic damage and significantly improve the pole’s fish-playing performance.

FItted with the reinforced half-extension that comes as standard, the pole measures a true 16m. 

To that little lot you can add three Bi-Conical mini extensions that fit from the fifth section upward, section alignment arrows, and an Easy Ship finish that ensures your fishing will not be compromised whatever the British weather may throw at you.   

Taking a closer look at the new XS Carp pole, it’s noticeably heavier than its stablemates. Indeed, it’s made from same high modulus Torayca Japanese carbon fibre as all other top-end Response poles, but as you might expect of an out-and-out power carp pole, the cut of the cloth makes for awesome section wall strength, while re-designed section joints are as tough as old boots.

Built like a tank it may be, but it certainly doesn’t handle like one – it’s as nimble as sports car, with a fair turn of pace thanks to its superb Easy Slide finish. 

I discovered that and much more about the pole while testing it on a very windy afternoon at Decoy’s Beastie Lake.

At this time of year, most of the lake’s heavyweight occupants can be found loitering around the margins, and as they have a proper fondness for corn and micros several lines can be fed – waving tails and muddied water betray their ponderous presence. 

The fact that this pole comes with three Bi-Conical extensions makes it ideal for margin work. They not only provide that bit of extra reach, but they give you something to really hang on to when a big fish is hooked. 

On the day, perverse as only carp can be, they didn’t seem overly keen on feeding close in, so it was a case of going long, starting at 13m. The pole’s extra bit of weight actually helps when it’s blowing a hooley, as it offers some semblance of steadiness without the angler having to constantly lean against the wind. 

Anway, fishing at this longer length it wasn’t long before the first Beastie bruiser arrived and elastic streamed from the tip. I leant hard into the fish just to see how much pulling power the new XS Carp can generate, and I can tell you, it was impressive. 

As you can see from the image, I was fishing from a peg on the strip at Beastie. This can be a real pain when you’re using a long pole, as it needs to be broken down several times when shipping back so as not to interfere with the peg behind you. However, the live test proved how easy the pole is to unship under pressure – new ones don’t always want to come apart until they are worn in a bit, but the toughened joints of the XS Carp are not only bullet-proof, but they glide together and come apart with a reassuring swish. 

My only slight gripe about Preston’s latest carp clatterer is that it’s definitely better at 13m than at 14.5m, and obviously it follows that it’s better at 14.5m than it is at the full 16m. That said, it’s very usable at its longer lengths, and there’s no denying its serious stopping power, superb section wall and joint strength, and a spares package as good as you’ll find anywhere.

Verdict: If you're an out-and-out commercial match angler looking for a strong pole that will last you a long time, Preston’s latest Response XS Carp pole could well be for you. The spares package is quite outstanding, as are its tough build and bagging performance.  

Price: £1,499.99

Middy Muscle-Tech 1150 Precision Carp

This tackle editor has learnt that when Middy calls to tell you about its latest tasty bit of kit – in this case the new Muscle-Tech 1150 Precision Carp pole – it pays to sit up and take notice.

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So, when the new postie threw the aforementioned item on to my desk with a resounding thud, I never feared for one moment that I’d open the tube to find shattered shards of carbon. If anything, my desk would be the injured party.

Sure enough, no damage at all, and no surprises considering the pole employs the new T-Core
anti-shatter technology. It’s as tough as boots, yet surprisingly light for a power pole weighing just 675g at 10.3m and rated to a pec-popping size 20 elastic. 

Reinforced section joints, and top kits with reinforced carbon side puller wraps on the second and third sections, further add to the pole’s impressive credentials. 

You get a Power 2 kit in the pole and another as standard, with a bonus cupping kit. A Precision F1 2 kit is available separately to fish at a precise 10m length – all top kits fitting on to the third section.

Middy claims its Muscle-Tech has a balance ratio of 17.6 Newtons, which I have no reason to doubt. The only Newton I know anything about is Sir Isaac, who had an apple fall on his head while the tree was being whacked for windfalls by some 17th Century Sawyer with a pole…

Seriously, though, I know Middy has invested a lot of research and development in this pole and is rightly proud of it. So where to live-test the new Muscle-Tech?

Few commercials can boast fish as weighty and numerous as Decoy’s Oak strip lake. One of their favourite tricks is to launch themselves up the lake at the speed of a cat with a banger up its behind, resulting more often than not in broken line, elastic, pole and dreams. I had, though, kitted the pole out with Middy’s Reactacore Hollow elastic, the yellow Saturn size 14-18... hellishly strong, soft at the hook-up stage, but gradually tightening up the more it’s stretched – brilliant.

The new Muscle-Tech soon accounted for a netful of huge fish (see image) that had often been written off as irresistible forces or immovable objects.

Verdict: 

If you're in the market for a super-dependable commercial carp pole, then definitely have a close look at Middy’s latest Muscle-Tech 1150 Precision Carp pole. I guarantee you’ll be glad you did. 

It’s easy and comfortable to handle, and much lighter and stiffer than you might expect for an out-and-out power pole. 

An adequate, though not extensive, spares package gives you a couple of tactical options.

Price: £499.99

Matrix Torque Carp 8.5m Margin Pole Review

A good margin pole always earns its keep on commercial fisheries. 

True, it may not see sunlight that often but when the occasion demands, gearing up with an out-and-out brute of a tool will give you something no amount of money, good pegs or pristine bait can – confidence!

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Matrix bills its new Torque Carp Margin model as being incredibly strong. After punishing tests on big-weight UK fisheries it’s come through with flying colours.

Measuring 8.5m long with the included Strike mini section fitted, the Torque is long enough for most margin situations where the fish may put some distance between themselves and you. It’s rated to a fearful 20-plus elastic and gets its power from the ultra-durable cross-layered carbon sections used in its construction. This effectively locks in the strength, resulting in sections that won’t creak or budge and inch when you put your shoulder into the fight.

Its supplied Power top kit has an enlarged ceramic side puller slot that’ll take thick hollow elastics with ease. A large tip bore means no cutting back is needed, and the Torque weighs just 490g at 8m, making it perfectly manageable when fished for two or three hours solid. Last but not least, the price is a bit of a snip! 

The enduring heatwave might be a bit too much for river fishing but it couldn’t be better for commercials, with big weights aplenty being caught from the margins all around the country. 

Magpie Lake at Rookery Waters, near Huntingdon, is one such venue in fine form – so it didn’t take long to pick it as a test venue.

Gearing up with the recently-released Matrix Slik elastic in the 14-16 yellow grade through the top kit, I reckoned a pot of corn and pellet would soon get the carp climbing up the pole. As I poked a rig just inches away from a thick bed of reeds at the full 8.5m length the Torque did feel heavy compared to a lighter match pole, but that’s the nature of the beast.

It’s very stiff, though, with no bounce when shipping out. That means no spillages if you are using a small pot on the tip for feeding, and no annoying tangles when you get halfway out into the swim. Don’t lie, we’ve all been there before! 

There’s a lovely finish on all sections to help with shipping and unshipping... full marks so far.

Fish number one was a small stockie mirror that didn’t put up much of a scrap, but the quick bite did show the rapid response of the Torque when hitting sharp dips on the float. It’s as quick as match pole, and that’s impressive for such a powerful beast.

Next drop, a 4lb common was dragged from the reeds in quick time. This was what I’d been waiting for – I didn’t hold back and heaved like billy-o to put maximum pressure on the pole. 

It bends nicely (unlike some very powerful poles where a lack of flex can cause them to break), allowing the elastic to do the work while absorbing each run and lunge.

There’s a very ‘solid’ feel to the Torque, which harks back to that confidence I talked about earlier.

I was in no doubt that I could pile more pressure on if need be, and the fish enjoyed a view of the landing net within mere minutes.

Half a dozen more similar-sized fish followed, along with a few stockies, and I was now into the swing of things, knowing how much hammer I could give the pole. The answer – if you ever doubted it – is a lot.

The ultimate test came when I hooked a big carp somewhere other than in the mouth. It charged off at breakneck speed and it was all I could do to hold the pole steady and trust in its strength and power to stop Mr Carp in his tracks. It did, too, resulting in that familiar foul-hooked sideways waggle as the fish was unable to muster any more power against the might of the Torque.

Yes, the hook pulled out of the tail at the net but by now I’d seen and felt enough of the Torque to know it’s going to be a winner!

Our verdict: The size of fish in commercials now warrants a proper margin pole if you’re serious about your fishing, and I reckon Matrix is on to a winner with the Torque. 

It’s supremely strong, yet doesn’t fish like a broom handle, and is long enough to reach where you want to be on most pegs. The price is attractive too and won’t be money wasted when a bit of edge bagging rolls round every summer!

Price: £189.99

preston innovations 8.5m Response Margin pole review

Spurred on by the continuing success of its iconic Response poles, Preston Innovations has extended the range to include a new 8.5m Response Margin, the subject of this week’s live test.

This Response beauty comes with two spare pre-bushed, Roller Pulla Power top kits, and together with the one that comes inside the pole, these provide enough flexibility to tackle most margin scenarios. 

The pole, which Preston claims to be the highest-grade margin model it has ever produced, uses the same super-high modulus Japanese carbon cloth as the three longer Response poles and, rather handily, the top kits all interchange. This is great news, particularly if you’re already a Response owner. 

The new 8.5m Response Margin, though, is obviously a fair bit more ‘robust’ than its longer stablemates. It’s more in its comfort zone subduing angry match-winning margin munters than it is sacking on silvers. 

As you might expect of a top-end power carp pole, the carbon cloth from which it is built is applied in a totally different way from its less gutsy amigos. That means added linear power, awesome section wall strength and reinforced, super-reliable joints. 

Built like a tank it may well be, but it certainly doesn’t handle like one. It’s as nimble as a sports car, with a fair turn of handling speed courtesy of its superb easy-slide finish. 

I chauffeured the pole up to Miracle Baits boss Steve Gregory’s super-popular Rushfield Lakes complex near Lincoln where, pulling into the car park late on a Monday afternoon, I was amazed to find the big fish-dominated Horsehoe Lake angler-free, giving me carte blanche on peg choice.

The downside of such situations is that everything with fins descends on your bait, rather than the just the targeted big fish. 

So with this in mind I rigged up with a hard 8mm hard pellet on a hair-rigged lasso, to try and deter the ravenous mini hordes. 

Despite my efforts, Plan A failed abysmally as everything from rampant roach to marauding micro carp swarmed around any feed that went in… foulers rubbed fins with fish that didn’t look big enough to tackle an 8mm hard pellet, and it drove me potty.

A change to two big pieces of worm merely served to encourage wasp-sized perch, which had stayed out of the way but now joined in the feeding fiasco. Then, out of nowhere, my half-hearted swipe at yet another sideways movement of the float saw the No14 Preston Hollo elastic disappear from the pole-tip at a rate of knots – so fast, in fact, that I’d have bet on another foul-hooker. Not until the elastic had all but bottomed out did I realise the Response had barely any curve in it. It was as stress and strain-free as a dormouse on tranquillisers as it and I battled what seemed to be a double-figure carp. 

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The lightness, agility and all-round pleasing handling belied the awesome stopping power packed by this poker-like 8.5m pole. 

How big that fish was I will never know – as is often the case with foulers, at the point when I started stripping elastic from the Roller Pulla top kit my unseen opponent made a bid for freedom, and the hook pulled. However, it had provided me with enough of an insight to tell that the latest Response is, as Preston claims, by far the best it has ever produced.

As the evening progressed, a few more proper fish were duly hooked the old-fashioned way – in the mouth – and netted within a few seconds, proving that Preston’s latest carbon offering is not a pole to be messed with.

Our Verdict: 

The 8.5m Preston Response Margin is a quite outstanding margin pole, offering everything you’ve come to expect in the way of fish-stopping power, super-tough section walls, and reliably smooth anti-ovalling joints – not to mention an easy-slide finish and top-notch handling. Well balanced, light and rigid, with an ultra-responsive tip speed, it feels quite unlike your normal margin pole.

If you already own an M50, M70 or M90 you’d be mad not to have the Response Margin in your holdall to tackle snag pits and big brawling fish.

Price: £269.99

Browning Black Magic Carp 11M pole review

Now in their third decade of production, Browning’s evergreen multi-award-winning Black Magic poles rank among the most popular of all time. 

The originals were no-nonsense tools to cope with large fish using hefty elastics and resolute rigs. 

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As time moved on, though, all Black Magic models acquired a more modern feel, their added section wall strength making them much stiffer and more robust than their predecessors. 

They also handle better, and their top-kit packages are designed in keeping with modern commercial tactics. That said, the Black Magic tradition of performance at an affordable price remains unchanged. And to that end, this latest Black Magic Carp is a proper chip off the old block.

This all-carbon 11m pole is reasonably light at 958g, given that its thick section walls defy ovalling or splitting even in the hands of the most Shrek-like angler. Browning uses the same technology brought into play for its European Hyper Carp models, but with a slightly toned-down linear action that allows it to absorb and cushion pressure, rather than destroy all in its path! 

Make no mistake, though, it can really dish out the punishment if need be. That I found out for myself on the live test at Decoy’s lump-filled Oak strip lake in Cambridgeshire.

The fish in Oak are big, very big in fact, with the potential to cause you much grief and lose you a lot of tackle if you don’t come properly tooled-up for the job.

With that in mind, I prepared the Black Magic by cutting 10ins or so off the top of its supplied Power top kit, stiffening it right up. 

More importantly, that made it possible to fit it with a large internal diameter PTFE bush. 

Next I threaded through what must be the mother of all elastics… Browning’s 30mm Xitan Microbore Rocket Red, which laughably carries a 17-21 rating.

If your car breaks down on your way home from fishing, just take this stuff out of your top kit, tie it on to your bumper and get someone to tow you home.

To see this type of pole perform at its best you have to take it as close to its limits as you dare. I reckoned if the Power top kit could stand the pounding it was likely to get on Oak, using the car breaker’s choice of elastic, then surely it could subdue just about anything else that took a pull at it!

While tying up a suitable rig I had thrown a few handfuls of soaked micro pellets and corn down the margin. Goodness... glancing down, all I could see were whale-like tails waving at me, and feeding vortices large enough to capsize a canoe. 

Wondering why on earth I’d tied on one of my favourite floats, I lowered the double corn-baited size 16 hook into the maelstrom.

To quote A Question of Sport: “What happened next?” Well, I didn’t actually see the bite, just an awful lot of bright red elastic between me and whatever was was charging headlong up the pond.

One moment it was slowing down, the next it was coming up in the water and running towards me. Yet there I was, shipping back with nothing broken. Guess what? I had the top kit back in my hand (as you can see from the image, right) and the rest, as they say, is history.

This Black Magic Carp is a great power pole at an affordable price, well capable of dealing with double-figure fish without so much as a creak.

Oh, hang on, it’s the phone. “Hello Sue, yes of course, I would love to come on A Question of Sport... if I can bring my pole!”

Verdict: By my reckoning one of the best Black Magic poles yet, this does just what it says on its butt section – ‘Specialist Carp and Big Fish Pole’. 

It’s not the stiffest pole I’ve ever handled, but it doesn’t need to be, as it’s a proper workhorse that will last you for years.

The reinforced joints won’t let you down, it ships well enough, and its 11m length puts you well within reach of the nearside shelf and, on most commercial fisheries, the next vacant platform. 

My sole criticism is that I would rather it came with two spare top kits rather than just the one.

Price: £249

FRENZEE PRECISION FXT 6E POLE Review

I had two very good reasons for wanting to get Frenzee’s new flagship pole in my sights.

Having live tested the awesome powerhouse FXT Edge pole a couple of seasons ago, then handled the original 16m Frenzee Precision FXT long pole, I was keen to pinpoint any improvements made.

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Equally important to me, my old Essex County team mate Jon Whincup, a man with more big match wins under his belt than Alex Ferguson, has been banging on about how damn good the new FXT 6E is. He recently wielded one brilliantly to brush aside a very talented Decoy winter league field, myself included!

So arrangements were made to live test the Precision FXT 6E at Decoy’s fish-stuffed Six Islands Lake. However, rather than ask Frenzee to send along a shiny new pole, I thought it would be much more interesting to get the man himself to come along with his well-used example and talk me through why he thinks it’s the bee’s knees. He did, after all, have plenty of input into its design.

Okay, I hear you say, as a sponsored Frenzee angler surely Mr Whincup is bound to sing the pole’s praises. Fair comment!

However, this quietly spoken and very modest giant of a man, who has trousered more match winnings in a single season than anyone else in the history of our sport, wouldn’t use anything he wasn’t 100 per cent satisfied with, and much the same can be said for all the top boys!

Plenty of banter set the tone of the test. Which one of the seven dwarfs was the height my seatbox set for? Then, of course, ‘Whinny’ just had to single out the only pole rig in my entire box with a bent stemmed float and a slightly dodgy hook. 

This was always the Essex County way – everything perfect, nothing left to chance. Jon had lost none of his perfectionism.

He told me that significant improvements in wall strength have been made to all the butt sections, which I know first-hand cannot be ovalled or squashed in the hand – basically they are bullet-proof. 

This does increase the overall weight, but there’s a case to be made for slightly heavier poles performing better in the wind, as they are inherently more stable. 

However, the new FXT 6E is pleasingly crisp and responsive at its tip-end, making easy work of connecting with fast bites and controlling short line rigs, even at its longest lengths.

The super-slick finish kicks in from its third section, helping to slide the pole through the hands faster than a soapy stoat.

Precision marker points, equally spaced along every section from the fifth downwards, definitely make it easier to judge fishing and feeding distances. Another big plus point is the ‘one top kit does it all’ side-fitted Eeze Glide arrangement. This certainly helps to simplify which elastics to carry.  

That said, it’s also worth noting that the new light-coloured ‘Stubby’ No1 kits that fit on to the second sections are also available. These pre-bushed 3.2mm, 4.3mm and 5.2mm tips provide you with a wickedly stiff top kit that’s just the ticket for F1s and big carp alike. 

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Our Verdict: 

Clearly, this is a pole for all seasons, built to last and able to withstand as much punishment as you care to dish out. 

A bagger’s delight, it’s every bit as much at home being used at its shorter lengths to plunder nearside cover for margin munters as it is splashing shallow rigs for F1s up in the water. 

Actual lengths are on the generous side – 13.1m (13m stated), 14.8m (14.5m) and 16.5m (16m). Weights are 1,055g, 1,305g and 1,520g respectively.

For my money, it’s more of a top-end commercial pole. However, as Mr Whincup was quick to point out, he’s won plenty of silver fish matches using his. 

Price: £2,799

Daiwa’s new Yank ‘n’ Bank Pro Power pole review

Spurred on by the success of its iconic Yank ‘n’ Bank rods and poles, Daiwa has extended the range. 

Among several new items, the 14.5m Pro Power Pole is the subject of this week’s live test. It comes with enough spare top kits to cover every commercial fishery scenario and is built around the same fast-taper mandrel as the new 13m Power Yank ‘n’ Bank pole, with sections that fully interchange with the current 9.5m Yank ‘n’ Bank model. 

The Pro Power pole is designed to be that little bit more robust than its stablemates and is built from the same high-modulus carbon fibre cloths as many of Daiwa’s far more expensive poles. 

However, the cloth from which it is cut has different specifications to give added power and awesome section wall and joint strengths.

Built like a tank it may be, but it certainly doesn’t handle like one – it’s as nimble as a sports car, with a fair turn of handling pace. 

I discovered that and much more while testing the pole at Miracle Baits boss Steve Gregory’s super-popular Rushfield Lakes complex – although with the car’s temperature gauge reading minus two, it was never going to be an easy day. Ice was forming at an alarming pace across the surface of Canal Lake and I found my confidence rapidly ebbing away.

However, this L-shaped lake is jam-packed with fighting-fit carp, which put up a devilish scrap even in the coldest of water conditions.

I rigged up with a 6mm disc of punched bread set to fish at dead depth in the deepest water – no feed, just the hookbait.

Just to make things even more interesting, it started snowing (that Beast from the East again!). 

Luckily, before hypothermia could disable me, the float gave a little waggle and disappeared from sight. Oh joy! With a lightly-set No8 hollow elastic streaming from the pole-tip, the fish charged straight underneath the ice.

I was reminded of something my Angling Times predecessor Dave Woodmansey once wrote – he described a carp pole as having ‘enough pulling power to drag a snarling Alsatian from its kennel’. This time around it was a very angry carp that needed extraction. 

Playing a decent fish underneath ice will exert an awful lot of stress on a pole. You need to keep piling on the pressure, but you can’t see where the elastic is going – all you know is, you need to keep it and your rig line well away from the razor-sharp edges of that ice.

At this point you learn the strengths and limitations of a pole. And I can happily report that the new Yank ‘n’ Bank Pro Power does exactly what the name suggests. 

Should you have a recalcitrant Alsatian that needs dragging out of its kennel, get yourself a Yank ‘n’ Bank Pro, tie some hefty elastic to the dog’s collar, and give it go. Trust me, the dog will move first!  

Price: Expect to pay around £765  

Our Verdict: the 14.5m Pro Power is a chip off the old Yank ‘n’ Bank block. It has many of the build qualities of its thoroughbred Daiwa stablemates, and it comes with a more than handy selection of top kits and accessories. All this makes it an outstanding one-stop commercial weapon, quite capable of delivering a super power play performance both down the margins and at longer range.