When Garbolino’s Darren Cox tells you a pole is the best he has ever used you have to take note! Joe Carass is the lucky man to get it out on the bank to give his verdict!Judging by the number of Garbolino poles you see on the bank, the company must be doing something right! Having being involved with a Garbolino-sponsored team for a few years I have fished with just about every top-end pole the French tackle giant has designed over the past few years. I used a Super G10 for two years and many of my angling friends use a G-Max 1000. Both of these poles are up there with the stiffest on the market; in fact, I would go so far as saying I don’t think I’ve ever used a more rigid pole than the G-Max 1000. So, understandably, I couldn’t wait to give the M1 a trial session to see how it stacked up against or bettered the previous offerings.
MAP is offering a whole new way to organise and store your pole’s top kits. Alex Bones took an instant liking to the new system – here’s why. I love a gadget, fishing-related or otherwise, so when Mike Robinson, the man in charge of developing this new product for MAP, showed it to me I was an instant fan. It’s simple – a hard ABS case roughly five feet in length with a zip holding the two halves together and an EVA liner designed specifically to keep up to eight pole top kits in place for transport and storage.
With hundreds of new products on display at the T&G Show, it was going to take a special one to really impress Joe Carass. . . and this is it!It was really difficult to pick out a star product this year, as there were simply so many excellent products on show.
Alex Bones gets an exclusive first look at three of the short feeder rods on offer from a new brand set to take match fishing by storm!Matrix is the all-new brand with all-new ideas, and was shown to me in its entirety by the man responsible for it… Mr Ricky Teale. Most of you will know or know of Ricky, but for those who don’t he’s been a formidable name in the trade for many, many years. And, he’s responsible for a great deal of the developments that present themselves before your very eyes when you visit your local tackle shop. So, what’s new about these rods and what makes them different from those sitting in your holdall already? I wanted to find out.
Feeder fishing for carp is one of the most popular approaches these days, so when a clever new feeder turned up at Match Fishing HQ, Joe Carass couldn’t wait to give it the once-over. Since the inception of commercial fisheries there has been one man who has arguably come up with more fish-catching devices than any other… Andy Findlay!Andy has revolutionised feeder fishing and his previous three creations – the flat Method feeder, pellet feeder and pellet cone – are responsible for taking some huge weights of carp every year. But, Fin being Fin, he couldn’t stop there, hence his latest creation: the banjo feeder. The banjo came about a couple of years ago when many of the fishery pellets were of a spongy consistency.
Renowned for their quality, Tri-Cast rods are among some of the finest available. Editor Alex Bones takes a close look at three of their latest 14ft and 15ft models. Recognising the increase in demand for long float rods on river venues like the Avon, Severn, Trent and Wye, Rochdale-based Tri-Cast has had these three rods in development for just over 12 months. Designed primarily for stick float and waggler work on rivers, they are nothing short of a pleasure.
With Marukyu starting to take the bait market by storm, Joe Carass decided to take a look at one of its most popular products… krill!Marukyu is still a fairly new name on the UK bait market. The baits are clearly very good but, never one to follow fads, I must admit to being fairly sceptical about them at first. I mean, I have always been of the opinion that as long as the bait we use is fresh and good quality and the fish are in front of you, then you will catch them! My opinion has changed somewhat of late, however, after going on several features with Jamie Masson, and also noticing the continuing list of results that Andy Kinder has been getting. With both of these top anglers using Marukyu products I felt I really needed to take a closer look.
Poles – the choice is almost endless! So, why spend your hard-earned cash on Garbolino’s latest G-Max 600 model? Alex Bones reveals why…The first thing that struck me when I removed this pole from its holdall was the finish! “Wow… silky smooth,” I said to my MF colleague, Joe Carass. However, upon assembling it to its full 14. 5m supplied length I must admit that I was dubious. Why? Because it felt so light, manageable and stiff… yet Garbolino says, and I quote: “It’s suitable for comfortably fishing elastics to a size 20” – surely it couldn’t be this good and handle the punishment associated with modern-day carp fishing?I treated the pole to its virgin session at the popular Leicestershire fishery, Makins.
We’re in an era when good-quality seatboxes are arriving at our offices every few weeks, so just how good is the new Sensas 700? Joe Carass checked one over to find out… For the past few years Sensas has been trying to make a name for itself in the seatbox market, and several models have been brought out since the company’s first designs. Now, though, I think that a product of a quality synonymous with the Sensas name has finally hit the tackle shops. The 700 box really is the perfect example of what the modern match angler is looking for in a seatbox. It has a modular design so that trays can be added for extra storage, along with a slide-out rig section where anglers can house hundreds of rigs or various other bits and bobs.
After developing a successful range of gear that all started with pole pots, the Frenzee design team has now turned its attentions to rods. Dave Harrell checks out the initial range of seven… Having worked in the fishing-tackle industry myself in a previous life, I know more than most exactly how difficult it is to break into the marketplace with a new range of angling products. I went through the exercise just over 20 years ago when I created the MAP brand, and while taking on the big boys in the industry was challenging I sometimes found myself wondering if I could make products like rods any better than (or even as good as) what was already available from long-established companies. Thankfully, at that time at least, the answer was yes and sales were good for several years before the big influx of rods from China put paid to any competitive developments I could achieve in the UK.
Joe Carass takes a close look at a new family of hooks that is already gaining favour with many top anglers on the match circuit… Even though I’m very young (well, compared to editor Dave Harrell) my angling career stretches over more than 18 years, and the original Preston PR range of hooks seems to have been available for as long as I can remember! There were many cult hooks among that range and I’ve had loads of success using several of the various patterns available. They were hugely popular but, as with all things, technologies move on and hooks can be produced nowadays that are even better than when the original range was first produced. So, having used so many of the old PR range I couldn’t wait to see what the lads at Preston had come up with in their new range. It comprises five hook patterns, which is quite a small range, but it complements the existing PR competition range of barbed hooks and the PR eyed range perfectly.
Dave Harrell runs the rule over the latest family of rods to come out of the Japanese tackle giant’s factory in Scotland… Every so often I find myself wondering if tackle companies can actually come up with anything new in terms of rod developments. The raw carbon fibre materials now being used haven’t changed significantly for a number of years so the only things that can be worked with are actions and cosmetics. This new family of six rods from Daiwa actually came about as a result of rods that the Scottish factory developed for the Italian market and, to use Daiwa’s words, they ‘break the rules of rod making. ’There’s no cork in sight on any of these new Airity rods as each one has a tapered butt section, which blends into its own sculptured handle and unique reel seat.
When anglers of the calibre of Darren Cox and Steve Cooke work together to design a rod range you can probably expect something pretty good. Dave Harrell takes a look at their work… Match rod actions are something that have interested me for many years and having been involved in rod designs and developments myself in a previous career I like to think I know a bit when it comes to passing judgement on them. This new range of four feeder rods has been developed by Darren Cox and Steve Cooke, two incredibly successful feeder anglers in their own rights with a long list of match wins behind them on various waters around the UK, so as you can probably imagine I was looking forward to having a look at the finished products when they arrived at the Match Fishing office. My first reaction when I took all four rods out of the bags and set them up was one of surprise, as I’d expected to waggle another set of soft, parabolic through-action rods, which seems to be the current trend with virtually every rod producer.
Sensas is making big inroads into the commercial-fishery bait market and its brand-new range of soft pellets caught the eye of Joe Carass at a recent trade show – he just had to take a closer look. A nglers who fish commercial venues are spoilt for choice! Not only have they got hundreds of venues around the country to fish, they also have hundreds of baits with which to target the fish! There are many brands on the bait market these days and it’s often difficult to gain an edge over other competitors. Sensas has looked at this problem, and it would have been very easy for the company to re-badge some bulk-bought pellets and sell them on. It didn’t want to do this, however, and set out to design a range of soft pellets that would appeal to every angler who visits commercial venues… and that’s where the new commercial-fishery range of soft hooker pellets comes in.
Abu Garcia is a name synonymous with quality reel developments. Dave Harrell checks out the company’s latest two offerings…Abu Garcia Cardinal 504i SDH FD & 506i SDH RD ReelsThe first thing that struck me when I took these reels out of the box was how impressive they looked. In terms of cosmetics and finish they seemed like much more expensive reels, but of course it’s what’s under the cover that really matters. Cardinal reels are famous for being reliable and strong and I reckon these reels will be able to take some serious punishment.
