Tri-Cast Venom Pro Competition 14m

PAY AROUND

£829.99

Owners of Tri-Cast rods and poles don’t just see them just as fishing tools, but as trusted companions on the bank. Indeed, one of my office colleagues has used an Arrowlite carp rod for nigh on 20 years for his margin fishing, and still reckons there isn’t a rod to touch it. That’s loyalty for you.

So I’ve little doubt that Tri-Cast’s latest 14m Venom pole will soon attract an army of starry-eyed followers. After all, the company specialises in the manufacture of composite tubular products (including poles), and is acknowledged as the European market leader in this field.

I wouldn’t claim to know diddly-squat about the scientific side of Tri-Cast’s business – in any case, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s classified information. But one thing I do know is that working with carbons and resins on a daily basis puts the company – the only one in England to actually manufacture carbon rods and poles – right at the cutting edge of material development. That’s why its products improve year by year without fail.

Yes, many moons ago some anglers felt that Tri-Cast poles were overly heavy and a tad unforgiving. But the weight issue, which may once have held water, is an issue no more. These days Tri-Cast poles measure up in all departments to their non-home-grown competitors, and the new 14m Venom Pro Competition is a classic example.

This pole combines high modulus carbon fibre cloths with newly developed resins, resulting in a lightweight, poker-stiff and super-powerful tool. Handily, it shares its top section mandrel with the Iconic Pro and Trilogy Pro 2 models, meaning all the top kits are interchangeable – a very handy feature.

Tri-cast says that the Venom Pro Competition will handle ‘anything that swims on a commercial fishery’. Well, that’s a bold claim to make, but if you discount the occasional matchman in possession of a 25-yards certificate who accidentally performs a backward-facing platform dive, it’s probably not far off the mark. The Venom Pro is said to accommodate everything from skimmers and F1s right through to the largest carp.

That would make it Ronseal in a pole holdall, so to ensure that it could indeed do ‘exactly what it says on the tin’ a trip to a well-stocked commercial was in order. Where better than Peterborough’s Decoy Lakes? On the day of the live test, despite a bitterly cold easterly wind to contend with, anglers were out in force – a sure sign that spring was just around the corner.

Assembling the 10-sectioned Tri-Cast Venom, I couldn’t fail to notice the exceptional wall strength and generous joint reinforcement –  forgiving of the occasional user slip-up, but giving no quarter to big, bruising carp.

I had fitted the pole with hollow size 10 elastic, strong enough to handle Decoy’s feisty carp and barbel, but the Venom will actually take a size 20-plus. Its fish-playing action is relentless, and spreads through the top three sections. The pole seems pretty much impervious to windy conditions, and you can safely throw your shoulder into a fish knowing it won’t let you down.

At its full length its stiffness makes hitting fast bites or fishing up in the water an easy business. But what it does best of all is land fish quickly. It’s a bully boy rather than an all-rounder, yet it’s not overly heavy or difficult to manoeuvre. It does exactly what Tri-Cast says it will – handle anything that swims in a commercial fishery.

Drennan Series 7 14.5m pole

PACKAGE

13m or 14.5m pole, including standard top-2 kit
Two spare top-2 Carp kits
Spare Double 2 Carp kit
Top 2 Cupping kit
60cm and 64mm reinforced extensions
Four Roller Cones
Extractor rod
FIve skid bungs
EVA nose cones for No3 and No4 sections
Six each of PTFE bushes: 3.5mm (1.8mm internal diameter); 3.5mm (2.3mm ID); 4.5mm (1.8mm ID); 4.5mm (3.2mm ID); 5.4mm(1.8mm ID); 5.4mm (4.1mm ID)
Intermediate for No2 section
Four side pull beads
Polemaster pole pot
Two spare cupping kit adaptors
Visi case
4-6 tube Drennan holdall

AVAILABLE SPARES

Additional ST (Standard) top kits, Carp kits, Double 2 Carp kits, extension to 14.5m. All sections can also be purchased separately.

PAY AROUND

13m £649.99; 14.5m £799

Drennan International’s latest mid-priced 13m and 14.5m Series 7 poles are billed by their creators as all-rounders, equally at home catching carp or silverfish.

Now, that in itself intrigues me. Some months ago I was lucky enough to handle an early prototype of this pole. I thought it was well balanced and stiff, and its assembled length was spot-on accurate, not something that can be said of many poles. Nor did it need any cutting back to take the PTFE bushes, so no complaints on that score.

However, the pole I handled was definitely more geared toward silverfish than carp. I thought that it lacked a bit of brawn across its top sections, although it was well balanced and perfectly fishable at its full length.

In a similar vein to its award winning Acolyte Carp pole, Drennan supplies the Series 7 with top kits featuring its unique roller cone side puller system, along with a box of pole accessory paraphernalia that offers many elastication options. Skid bungs and EVA nose cones, which help to keep the pole in tip-top working order, complete the list of goodies.

What I was most excited about, though, was to discover whether the Drennan team had tuned the Series 7 up a bit from the prototype so it was able to handle much bigger fish. The Drennan way is to dot every ‘I’ and cross every cross every ‘T’ before a product is released on to the market, so I had few doubts that the pole’s ‘all-rounder’ tag would prove to be correct.

To put it through its paces I took the 14.5m Series 7 along to one of the best live test venues I know of. Oxfordshire’s famous Rolfs Lake is packed with big carp that have seen it all before, and are renowned for being battle-hardened. Believe me, over the years I have seen some seriously expensive and supposedly super-strong Match kits completely destroyed by these finned devils, originally stocked the creator of the lake, Rolf Wobbeking, and now lovingly tended by John Bennett.

With these Rolfs Lake fish having such a reputation for mayhem I chose a Carp 2 side puller top kit with fairly hefty Drennan Pink Bungee elastic rated 14-16 – despite this being winter, when fish are supposedly lethargic.

I kicked off the session with maggots fished on the drop at full depth, and caught a few small roach – not particularly exciting, as I had hoped for the odd big chub to put in an appearance. Still, it proved the pole had enough stiffness to generate a quick tip speed at its full 14.5m length, proving its worth for silverfish.

A change to a single grain of sweetcorn brought about an altogether different response from the Rolfs fish. I didn’t have to wait long for the float to disappear, and in an instant the pole hooped over as a carp, less than chuffed about having its lip pulled, used its tackle-snapping cocktail of strength and speed to attempt an escape. Now we would really see how powerful the Drennan team had ended up making the Series 7 pole.

Clearly, as you can see in the photograph, its flexing action still spreads across its top five sections, and while this clearly isn’t an out-and-out power carp pole, the section walls are beefy enough to instil an air of confidence, should you hook up with a unit.

When under stress the section joints all pull apart quickly and cleanly, and just to give the pole the full Rolfs treatment I even foolishly attempted to play a few fish off sections 5 and 6, just to see if it would collapse under the strain.

I can happily report that even when subjected to what would have to be classed as bad angling practice, the Series 7 remained firm and reliable, turning in a good all-round performance…. just as Drennan said it would.