Shimano Speedcast Match
PAY AROUND
£239.99
Every now and again I like to fish with a real ‘top-end’ match rod just to see how far technology has moved on, and to compare it with less expensive rods that most of us can realistically afford.
Second only in terms of price and quality to Shimano’s flagship Aspire Ultra Match rod, the Speedcast kicks off with a wallet-wilting catalogue price of £269.99, but a likely, real-life shop price of £199.99 – although you still don’t lightly spend that kind of cash on a float rod.
There are five different versions of the rod available from 13ft to 15ft in length and designed to cast floats from 5g-15g to 10g-30g, with full book prices from £169.99 to a thunderous £309.99 (suggested shop selling price £239.99).
This spread covers most angling situations from normal waggler work with silvers and small carp to ‘bagging’ carp and river trotting.
I chose to test the 13ft Speedcast 390F that I reckon will find most favour on a typical commercial pool where you might get a 6oz roach one cast and a 6lb carp the next.
Visually, it has to be said that there’s nothing very exciting about the traditional, plain matt-grey, slimline three-piece float rod.
As you would expect from a blank in this price bracket it is fitted with a quality Fuji DPS reel seat and Fuji Alconite guides, but that’s about it. Even the graphics are plain and fuss-free.
The big bucks you’re handing over are for something you can’t see – the high class HPC200+ grade carbon cloth that the slimline blank is built from.
Weighing 194g (6.8oz) the rod balances beautifully with a modern 2500 or 3000-sized match reel and feels fast and crisp in the hand.
A ‘semi parabolic’ action means it bends through the top third to cushion small hooks and land smaller stamp fish before the blank goes rock solid to deliver big-carp stopping power.
I’d be happy to fish reel lines to 6lb on this rod and hooklengths down to 1.5lb on river or stillwater, so it’s a functional bit of kit with a multitude of applications.
The good, responsive carbon sent a standard 3AAA waggler flying like an arrow and picked up the line and set the hook instantly at 30 yards at the flick of the wrist.
In this test, fishing a 4lb reel line, I caught carp to 5lb, tench, roach, rudd and skimmers and appreciated a thoroughbred piece of cutting-edge kit.
Drennan Series 7 12ft Puddle Chucker Pellet Waggler Rod
PAY AROUND
£79.95
The last time I asked Drennan director Gary Barclay how many rods the company had in its best-selling Series 7 range it came to 23. Together these cover just about every known match and pleasure fishing scenario, and this situation poses an obvious question – why would Drennan introduce yet another rod?
The answer lies in the meteoric rise in the use of the long-range pellet waggler on big open-water commercials such as Larford, Boddington, Meadowlands and Clattercote.
Such is the popularity of this style of floatfishing that it wasn’t all that long ago that Drennan introduced its own range of Crystal XL Pellet Wagglers. These floats not only cast a very long way, but help to iron out problems such as surface drift, casting accuracy and visibility which are the downside (indeed the pain in the backside) of floatfishing at distance.
Come the float, come the rod – enter the Drennan Puddle Chucker 12ft Pellet Waggler, claimed to offer a slightly more powerful option in its Series 7 range. However, I think Drennan is under-selling the rod with such an obvious comment.
Yes, it clearly has more casting clout than the standard two-piece 11ft Puddle Chucker. The 12-footer will throw a fairly hefty float of up to 20g a very long way. This is made possible by its high forward loading characteristics in which the last 18ins or so of the hollow carbon tip absorb the weight of the float while the rest of the blank pushes its stiffish backbone through the cast. It’s the same basic casting action you find in most good feeder rods.
It doesn’t stop there, though. The 12ft Puddle Chucker, which is in two equal lengths and can be carried ready made-up, has a forgiving parabolic fish-playing action which kicks in when a bigger carp takes the bait.
During the live test it handled floats of up to 14g with consummate ease, although I wouldn’t fancy using it with anything under around 6g.
I can see this rod quickly becoming a firm favourite with club anglers who have matches booked on big-fish venues that respond well to the pellet waggler. My single criticism is that the 23ins all-cork handle needs to be an inch or so shorter (at least it does for me). Pass the hacksaw!
Shimano Alivio AX Barbel Classic
PAY AROUND
£79.99
Twin-tip rods are always popular with IYCF readers because they can cover a multitude of jobs, so we thought we’d slip one in here.
This new, Olivio AX Barbel comes in a choice of 1.5lb or 1.75lb test curve and, typical of Avon-style rods, it will happily cover close/medium ranges, but struggle to go further due to the softish middle. The upside is that this action will put a big smile on your face when playing a decent fish.
It comprises an Avon-style ‘donkey top’ for floatfishing and touch legering duties and a quivertip carrier section with three push-in tips.
The heavier of the two 12ft rods is the better choice for larger fish or when extra distance is required.
Drennan Acolyte Ultra 15ft Float Rod
TECH SPEC
Length: 15ft (4.75m)
Weight: 5.75oz (163g)
Recommended reel lines: 3lb-5lb
Recommended hooklengths: From 1.5lb
Other rods in the Acolyte Ultra range: 13ft, 14ft
PAY AROUND
£199
There have been one or two rather unfortunate instances involving long rods and me. Like the time a 17-footer exploded in my hands as I cast a Bolo float into the River Severn, or when the top six inches of another snapped off as I bent it a little to bait a hook. Long rods and I were definitely not a marriage made in heaven.
So you can perhaps imagine my reservations when I first set eyes on Drennan’s new Acolyte Ultra 15ft float rod. The rod looked and felt fantastic. Slimmer at the butt than any other 15footer I’d picked up, it was also unbelievably light. It tips the scales at just 163g (5.75oz). All well and good, but would my long-rod jinx continue to haunt me?
Longest in a range of three, slightly beefier Acolyte rods which have been added to the original range, the 15ft Ultra is designed primarily for rivers. The extra length improves float control no end when trotting sticks, Avons and Bolos along flowing water.
But it has other uses, and one of these is as a margin rod on lakes for good-sized fish – perfect for a test right in the middle of the river closed season. And 10 minutes into the session at Northamptonshire’s beautiful Ryson Lake, my long-rod demons were beginning to be exorcised as a 3lb tench lay in the landing net.
Rest assured, this is a very special rod. Despite its extra length, there’s no top-heavy feel and there’s no extra weight added to the rod butt, which has been an easy fix to such problems in previous long rods, not from Drennan I might add.
It was perfectly balanced with the 3000-size reel I used and the rod’s action remains fast and crisp at the tip, with the middle section coming into play when required.
My chance to test this last comment came towards the end of the session. After that first tench, and few decent roach and skimmers, something much more substantial took my waggler-fished sweetcorn on a size 16 hook to 0.14mm hooklength and 5lb Supplex main line.
I didn’t hold out much hope of landing what was clearly a big tench as it ploughed under the tree to my right. In fact I piled on more pressure than I probably should, but after one particularly scary moment when I felt the line scraping against a unseen underwater branch, I eventually netted what was certainly my biggest tench ever.
I loved using the Acolyte Ultra 15ft. How many will Drennan sell? Well, the company deserves to sell a lot and with the resurgence of river floatfishing thanks to events like RiverFest, I sincerely hope they will. Britain’s anglers deserve the chance to use this most impressive of rods. Now to give it an outing on the rivers - June 16 can’t come soon enough.
Middy Baggin Machine 11ft Waggler Rod
TECH SPEC
Two section 11ft (3.3m)
Lined F guides
Synaptic MTDI carbon construction
Recommended reel lines 6lb-8lb
Recommended hooklengths 5lb-8lb
Cork and EVA thumb grip handle
PAY AROUND
RRP: £75 (shop around and expect to pay around £54.99)
The latest Baggin Machine rods and reels are part of the new Middy Synaptic series that also takes in poles, whips and landing net handles. All are built to withstand the stresses and strains of modern-day commercial carp fishing.
The new Synaptic carbon cloth combines with resins that allow the blanks to be extremely strong and flexible while retaining a good degree of lightness and stiffness – some modern materials achieve these qualities but tend to be a bit on the brittle side, but no such problems with these two rods. The slimline black blanks are capable of chucking feeders of up to 30g and pellet wagglers weighing 12g without bouncing around all over the place. Both models have a soft, progressive tip action that starts to tighten up quickly just past the middle of the blank, offering plenty of pulling power exactly where you need it – just the thing to persuade big hard-fighting fish to stay away from snags and platforms.
The fact that the two rods share build characteristics and performance might persuade you to invest in them as a commercial fishery pairing, because once you get used to them, casting a feeder or float and playing fish will become second nature.
This Middy pair is best suited to small to medium-sized fisheries, 20-peggers if you like. Casting distances of up to 30 yards are possible with the feeder rod, with around 20 yards the maximum for the longer waggler model. They would be undergunned on large open-water complexes holding ‘zoo creatures’, as the blanks have neither the backbone nor the tenacity to cope with such extremes.
The live test took place on Makins Phase Three Severn lake which, although quite narrow in places, did throw up some very decent carp and barbel on a variety of straight lead, feeder and float tactics that tested the rods to their not inconsiderable limits.
Drennan Acolyte Plus 13ft Match Rod
PAY AROUND
£179 (13ft), £189 (14ft)
The original three-piece Drennan Acolyte Match rod, launched last June, must rank among the best lightweight silverfish rods ever. Its seamless, progressive action combines with a top section forgiving enough to be used with gossamer hooklengths and tiny hooks, and of course the finish of the quality carbon blank is impeccable.
If this rod has any faults (or, more properly speaking, limitations) it’s that it struggles to cast heavy floats long distances, and is at the limits of its power when dealing with really big fish.
In true Drennan style, and in response to positive criticism, Drennan has duly released this a stepped-up version of this masterpiece – the Acolyte Plus. Just like the original, it has been designed in consultation with five times World Champ Alan Scotthorne and comes in 13ft and 14ft versions. The real difference lies in the engine room – this will cast bigger floats further and fight specimen fish harder. Drennan suggests it will be at its best with with reellines from 4lb-6lb (1.8kg- 3kg) and hooklengths from 3lb-5lb (0.13mm-0.16mm).
This extra power has been made possible by subtle changes to the blank. As well as being a bit faster and stiffer, the top two sections have been designed to load up higher along the blank when it’s under stress. This way the classic softly progressive action is retained, but with a bit more grunt when it’s needed.
Where would you use a rod like this? The Acoloyte Plus is ideally suited to deep-water slider fishing for bream, skimmers or big roach, but will appeal equally to the big-river enthusiast using top and bottom floats on the Severn, Wye, or Trent, where a steel fist in a velvet glove is a requirement in the fast currents. I see it selling best of all to the purist natural venue float fisherman targeting decent-sized tench and bream, and these were just what I had in my sights for the live test at Northamptonshire’s peaceful and pretty day-ticket Rysons Lake. This venue lends itself well to waggler tactics, and my set-up was simple enough – 5lb (0.18mm) reel line attached to a 3lb (0.12mm) hooklength. My 3AAA waggler was shotted shirt-button style with a series of No8s culminating in a size14 hook baited with a lobworm tail.
The casting potential of the Acolyte Plus was barely stretched by this standard waggler set-up, and the rod could have easily handled something much heavier. I am not sure, though, that I entirely agree with the Drennan claim for it being ideal for pellet waggler and missile fishing on commercials. The finesse of the tip section would eventually lead to – let’s say – a ‘disappointment.’
That minuscule criticism aside, what a fabulous big fish playing action the rod has. Every lunge is met with an instant response, the transmission of ‘feel’ along the blank is simply astounding, and when you pile on the side-strain the progressive curve takes it all in its stride.
Korum Xpert 1.1lb
PAY AROUND
£109.99
This is a real darling of a tench/bream rod worthy of any sporting angler who enjoys the thrill of the fight, rather than just being concerned with landing fish quickly.
The two-piece 11ft 6in blank has a pleasing semi-through action that will happily fish a float or 28g feeder at shorter ranges. It’s especially effective when you’re targeting the marginal shelf.
Using reel lines to 8lb you can sit the rod on an electronic alarm with a legered bait/feeder set-up, fish a float or freeline a lobworm down the edge or up against a lily bed. It also makes a smashing little stalker rod for the mobile angler. I fish one of these with a centrepin and absolutely love it!
It will cover you for a wide range of specialist jobs like fishing a maggot feeder for big roach or even fishing a floating dog biscuit for surface carp.
Drennan 13ft Tench and Specimen Float
PAY AROUND
£94.95
Drennan is probably the first name many anglers think of when you mention float rods for tench.
The Oxfordshire company has an illustrious history of selling some of the best tench waggler rods of all time and its current offering is another cracker.
The semi-through-actioned rod is a traditional 13ft long but an unusual design means the blank splits into two equal 6ft sections, plus a 12-inch screw-in butt end- piece, making it easy to carry made-up in the sleeve that comes with the rod.
Suitable for use with reel lines of 3lb to 7lb and hooklengths down to 2.5lb the rod has a wide range of big-fish uses, right through to trotting a stick float for chub and barbel.
We think this one is destined to become another Drennan tench classic.
Shimano Purist Barbel Multi Classic
PAY AROUND
£174.99
Don’t let the name fool you. This versatile twin-top rod is perfect for float or Method feeder duties when big bream and tench are the target.
It comes with a 1.5lb test curve Avon tip, and a separate 1.5lb quivertip carrier along with three, brilliant white high-viz quivertips rated at 2oz, 3oz and 5oz.
A detachable 1ft dolly extension allows you to reduce the rod from 12ft to 11ft when fishing in tight swims or on small rivers. Another good ‘bite alarm’ rod.
The 12lb reel line rating on this rod gives you the power to land big fish but the slightly softer through-action means you can fish hooklengths down to about 4lb if required.
It’s a good rod to have if you fish heavily-weeded or snaggy swims where fish have to be bullied.
Middy XK55 World Pro Waggler
PAY AROUND
£149.99
If you need the sensitivity and casting ability of a match rod and the big-fish beating power of a specimen rod, you’ll struggle to better this.
The lightweight, slimline construction of this 11ft, two-piece blank belies it’s true strength which you can understand when I tell you that it’s officially rated to carry 15lb mainlines!
In situations where you need to place a waggler accurately – tight up against distant lily pads for example – this compact rod will deliver.
Capable of casting floats weighing up to 25g (1oz) the special CS3 carbon launches floats like arrows. And, if you’re fishing venues where 20lb-plus carp could turn up, you have every chance of landing them on this remarkable kit that feels so light in the hand.
JW Young 11ft Avon Quiver
PAY AROUND
£74.99
A legendary multi-use, twin-top rod at an affordable price that’s set many a specialist angler on the road to successful specimen bream and tench fishing.
Almost as famous as the John Wilson Avon Quiver, the JW Young model was always thought to be just a little bit more ‘up-market’, though the two rods are remarkably similar in performance.
Like the John Wilson model, you get a 1.25lb top section for float fishing or touch legering, but the quiver top has a spliced-in 2oz tip for all other leger duties.
Ideally suited to fishing reel lines from 3lb to 7lb this little rod will cover a multitude of methods and catch virtually all coarse fish swimming.
Comes with a two-foot ‘dolly’ section so it can be used at 11ft or 13ft to suit different swims and ranges.
Rovex John Wilson Avon Quiver
PAY AROUND
£74.99
Almost certainly the biggest-selling rod in British angling history – and one that’s been in constant production for almost a quarter of a century!
This was my first real tench rod and provided countless hours of pleasure either watching a piece of cut-down peacock quill in the margins, or lobbing a crumb feeder with a large piece of bread flake or big lobworm on the hook.
The 12ft twin-top is perfect with reel lines of 3lb-8lb and the action is fairly soft, so this is not a casting machine.
Instead, it suits most small intimate venues where you aim to fish from under your feet to 30 yards out. Lovely to play fish on, though!
You get an Avon-style top and a separate quivertip carrier with three wihte-painted push-in tips. It comes with a ‘dolly’ section to fish at 11ft or 13ft.
Drennan Series 7 Specialist Avon Quiver
This delightful twin-top rod has a multitude of uses on commercial pools, rivers and lakes, and makes a brilliant, close and medium range tool for targeting tench and bream.
Perfect for reel lines in the 5lb to 10lb range, the rod is capable of casting feeders weighing from 0.5oz to 3oz with the quiver section, or fishing a close-range float with the Avon top.
You get two glass, push-in quiver tops rated at 3oz and 4oz that offer excellent bite registration and both sport high-viz white tops.
The rod has a comfortable progressive action that’s good for keeping small hooks in place but is not designed for long casts, so it’s best fished from in the margins to around 35 yards.
There’s a host of useful rod information on the underside of the butt section.
RRP £99.95
Shimano Purist Brench Float
PAY AROUND
£179.99
The name ‘Brench’ is a cross between bream and tench, and that’s exactly what the Shimano engineers designed this rod for.
The two-piece design makes it easy to transport ‘made-up’ in a rod sleeve or quiver and a test curve of about 1.75lb allows it to fish reel lines up to 12lb to target specimen-sized bream and tench.
Perfect for large stillwaters, the rod has the power to extract big fish from weedy/snaggy swims, yet isn’t an unresponsive ‘poker’.
The blank has a fast tip action to help accurately cast feeders weighing up to 3oz over distances of 70 yards to hit small clear areas in weed, or features like gravel bars. It’s great for fishing the Method on a bite alarm.
That fluid top action also helps keep hooks in place when fish thrash at the net cord.
Korum CS Series 11ft Float Rod
PAY AROUND
£44.99
On most commercial venues these days the trend is towards short two-piece rods, especially those intended for float work. It’s handy to be able to carry them to your peg ready rigged and all set to go.
This has clearly not gone unnoticed by Korum, for the latest member of its best-selling CS Series rod series is a more than useful two-piece 11ft Float model.
The carbon blank shares much the same credentials as its stablemates – classy matt black finish, lined guides throughout, secure screw reel fitting with EVA thumb grip, and Korum engraved butt cap. There’s even a folding keeper ring, a nice final touch on any rod regardless of its price, which in this case is eminently affordable.
The two sections are of equal length, making the rod super-easy to pack away even with a float in situ. A quick tip here is to wrap the rig and float around a 20cm pole winder before securing it against the rod with a Velcro strap.
The new 11ft CS Series Float rod is suited to reel lines of between 3lb to 8lb and pellet wagglers up to 10g. This makes it ideal for most small to medium-sized ponds and lakes, but it lacks the steely mid-section to satisfy the would-be horizon chucker.
The perfect venue to fish with this type of float rod is typified by the one used for the live test – the 20-peg Horseshoe Lake on Peterborough’s prolific Decoy complex.
On one of the sunniest afternoons of the year so far I arrived to find a few decent-sized carp sunning themselves in a quiet corner, so with a casting distance of around 35m to the basking fish I attached a stumpy 2AA crystal waggler to the 5lb reel line and finished off with a 0.12mm hooklength and size 16 hook baited with four dead red maggots.
With the rig set to fish at around 18ins deep, and as long as I got the cast right first time, I was sure that the slowly falling bait would attract an instant bite. On the other hand, a misplaced or badly landed cast would definitely spook the fish.
So it was pretty much a case of ‘in at the deep end’ for the CS Float rod. As things turned out, it propelled the float arrow-straight through the air, and with bit of fine feathering at the end of the cast it landed with scarcely a ripple. In an instant the orange tip vanished from view. My riposte was lightning fast, and in an instant the blank whipped the line from the water’s surface.
Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? The rod arched round in a progressive, almost through action, forgiving enough to absorb any late lunges at the landing net but with plenty of grunt left in the butt to dictate the terms of the fight and its eventual outcome.
Shakespeare Superteam Match 13ft
PAY AROUND
£89.99
Now here is a lovely rod-and-reel combination that is equally at home casting wagglers on stillwaters as it is trundling big top and bottom floats along rivers - assuming they ever get back within their banks.
Shakespeare’s product manager James Robbins was keen to point out the versatility of this new Superteam duo when it was unveiled at the company’s trade show several months ago, explaining how he had designed the rod to be capable of extracting roach and skimmers using light gear, as well as handling much larger harder fighting quarry such as chub and carp with beefier kit.
If true, this would make it the ideal pleasure or club angler’s tool, suited towards those who do like to floatfish on lots of different venues throughout the season, but who don’t want the expense or hassle of carrying around loads of different rods and reels.
So with the rivers sadly well out of sorts, my choice was to take the ‘Shakey’ all-rounder to a mixed commercial fishery for a short session. And there are few better and more obliging in the way of a dipped float than Wood Lake at Northamptonshire’s Wold Farm. This pleasant-looking day-ticket venue is nicely flanked from the winter winds by a wood on one side, helping to make it feel a few degrees warmer even on the coldest of days. Oh, and it’s stuffed to the gunnels with a variety of healthy looking, hard-fighting carp, skimmers, tench, rudd and roach. What more could you ask for?
The perfect reel for use with this type of float rod would ideally be a front drag model with a body size no smaller than a 2500 or larger than 3500. This unsurprisingly puts the latest Shakespeare Superteam 35FD model solidly in the frame as the perfect partner. A reel line of 4lb will ensure that the combination will cast any type of light float with ease, while still providing enough protection for hooklengths of up to around 0.20mm should you be targeting big fish.
The blank is constructed with a versatile progressive action that shows signs of being on the tippy side when it’s first put under pressure. This is actually what you want in a good match rod that has a lot to cope with. It’s made with a fine hollow carbon tip and top section that is designed to handle small hooks, gossamer lines, and cast light floats, while the moderately powerful middle and butt section help massively when playing bigger fish.
The rod does everything asked of it well enough, just as James had suggested it would. I wouldn’t necessarily want to trust it with hooklengths of under 0.10mm and neither would I attempt to cast big pellet waggler floats with it, but as an all-rounder with a sensible price, it gets the thumbs-up from me.
Daiwa TDR Competition 11ft Waggler
PAY AROUND
£225.00
Daiwa are one of the few tackle companies who are adding several new match rods to their comprehensive portfolio this year.
One of the most eagerly anticipated of them will surely be their TDR Match and Feeder rod range. Up until now, TDR has only ever been emblazoned on the firm’s best-selling all blue reels which have become legendary among Britain’s match anglers for their superb performance and reliability.
The new seven rod TDR range has been primarily built with commercial fisheries in mind and has no doubt been created with plenty of input from Daiwa’s two world champs and senior consultants, Will Raison and Steve Ringer. Between them, these two have probably forgotten more about how to catch commercial carp and silvers than most of us would even remember.
They’re priced well beneath the Daiwa Airity Match and Leger models and its awesome flagship Tournament range, but its finished specifications are still exceptionally high and include a luxury gloss finish, original Fuji reel seat, quality lined guides, cork and EVA handle and Daiwa’s trademark Armlock rear grip.
However it’s the manufacturing process which really sets these rods apart, as it uses a special High Volume Fibre carbon which combines lowered amounts of resins and an increase in carbon content, the idea being to deliver more strength and power to the blank but at a much reduced weight.
And boy are these rods light! The 11ft model I tested tips the scales at a featherlight 6.3oz which makes it perfect for fishing the pellet waggler. Holding any rod while firing out pellets with consistency and accuracy requires balanced as well as easy-to-use tackle and this rod has both in spades.
If anything, the surprising amount of lightness and feel that you get when first handling these rods - well at least the 11ft Pellet Waggler model that I used - does lull you into thinking that perhaps it all going to be a bit ‘weak willed’, lacking in backbone and that maybe it would be a real struggle to pull a really hard-fighting carp away from potential snags such a platform and into a waiting landing net.
But after spending a few hours using one at Makins Fishery in Warwickshire, I recommend you don’t be too hasty to judge it by simply wiggling it around and pushing its tip against the ceiling of your local tackle shop.
The pencil thin blank’s tapered progressive action kicks in from roughly half-way along its top section and keeps powering-up all the way through the middle and start of the butt section. It certainly couldn’t be classed as being overly savage, but neither should it be ignored.
It’s best likened to being a bantamweight, but carrying a heavyweight knockout punch.
Daiwa’s claim is that all the rods have the ideal action for ‘fast fishing’ and while I cannot vouch for the rest of the range, the 11ft TDR Pellet Waggler has a turn of performance that made the old adage of ‘never judging a book by its cover’ seem very apt indeed.