Up Close

This month Joe Carass takes the new mid-priced pole offerings from Sensas out for a little jaunt!


Over the years I have used and owned poles from just about all the different manufacturers out there but, I must admit, I have never owned a Sensas model. I have held most of them throughout my time, though, and have always been impressed with what I have seen.
My esteemed editor, Alex Bones, and I went tackle testing a few months ago and he put the top-of-the-range Power Match 874 through its paces. It was a lovely bit of kit that is perfect for the UK angler. That, however, is a £2,000 pole and although there are quite a few people who can afford such a pole, there are very many more out there who can’t.
It was during a chance conversation with Sensas UK gaffer Mark Downes that he suggested a couple of poles that would be ideal for the mid-range market. Poles of around a grand seem to be extremely popular and judging by other models that I have seen at this price point it is a fiercely competitive area.
What was particularly interesting during our chat was that Sensas has actually developed these two poles to sell at exactly the same price. I thought this was a bit strange at first, but when I looked at the poles it was easy to say why.
First up is the Power Match 814, billed as an all-rounder. At 16 metres as standard it has a total of seven top kits. So far so good then, as this is a great package that covers plenty of different situations.
The pole itself is supposed to be one that will be suited to all but the heaviest and most demanding of situations. It claims to have finesse, yet be more than capable of dealing with an angry carp.
To test the 814 I organised a short morning session on the Warwickshire Avon near Stratford. Now, in my experience, river fishing puts more stress on a pole than any carp fishing situation. This may sound ridiculous but if you think about it, you are often striking extremely hard to set the hook in deep and fast water. This amount of recoil doesn’t do the pole any good and I have broken countless sections over the years when striking in such a manner.
With this in mind (and I wasn’t going to hold back) if the pole survived this treatment then it must be more than capable of taming a few carp on a commercial.
Back to the session, the river was carrying a lovely tinge of colour and a little extra pace and it looked stunning! I had been told that feeding plenty of groundbait was the way to go so I introduced eight balls at 13 metres where I had about six feet of water.
I have to admit to being rather excited to see what I would catch and hastily slipped a fluoro pinkie onto my size 22 hook. The pole felt lovely but that was at the back of my mind, because all I was interested in was snaring some redfins!
Straightaway I was into small dace that had homed in on the groundbait, and the pole was superb! It was beautifully balanced and I never once felt that a more expensive pole would have caught me any more fish. As the session wore on, I started to latch into a few quality roach. The fishing was fantastic and the pole was equally as good.
Next up is the 844. This is the powerhouse of the Power Match range and it is claimed to easily handle elastics up to a No20. As soon as you take this pole out of the supplied holdall you realise that it is a serious piece of kit – the 11m and 13m sections are incredibly strong! The wall thickness is unbelievable and I reckon you could walk along them! As soon as I felt these sections, though, I feared the worst. How could a pole with sections like this be any good at longer lengths?
Well, how wrong could I be! The top six sections are relatively light and somehow the heavy butt sections actually help the pole feel really well balanced. It is stiff too, and will be more than capable of hitting fast bites when fishing shallow at longer lengths. This pole has been developed by Jean Desque to cope with catching big weights of carp on the powerful rivers on the Continent. It does, however, make a great pole for this country too, and I would be more than happy to use it in extreme snag pits!
The 844 has an even better package than the 814 and comes with nine top kits! It is exactly the same price and if I was looking for a power pole then I would seriously consider this one.
So there you have it, two cracking poles from the Sensas stable. Both are perfectly suited to doing the job that you ask of it – and I can’t recommend them highly enough!

Sensas Power Match 814 RRP: £1,250; SSP: £999
2 x UK Power Top Twos
3 x Match Top Threes
1 x Mini Extension
1 x Cupping Kit
Team Pole Bag + Tubes

Sensas Power Match 844 
RRP: £1,250; SSP: £999
2 x UK Power Top Twos
3 x Match Top Threes
1 x Mini Extension
1 x Cupping Kit
Team Pole Bag + Tubes
2 x UK Power Tops FOC (special offer)