Match Fishing gets its hands on the brilliant new Octbox D25 MK18.
The Octbox team really are the best at listening to what their customers want. The head of design, Rick Tyler, spends hours on the phone to his many customers and always looks for ways to incorporate what they are saying and to improve the highly popular seatbox range.
The D25 MK18 is the perfect example of listening to customer feedback and making improvements.
Matt Godfrey takes Preston Innovations’ brand-new Response Carp 16m pole to the bank to tame some surface-lurking monsters!
Last month I had a phone call from Preston Innovations brand manager Scott Geens. Immediately after picking the phone up, I could sense excitement in his voice. “I’ve got something here that you might like, and I’d love you boys to get out on the bank for an exclusive with it. ”
My ears instantaneously pricked up.
Match Fishing editor Tom Scholey takes a look at a very special range of rods, Daiwa’s Airity X45s.
I must admit to being massively sceptical when I was asked to consider the possibility that a rod might actually be ‘better’ than Daiwa’s Tournament range.
I love these rods and have been steadily building a collection when my budget has allowed. Indeed, I have written on these pages before about how I consider the 10ft Tournament to be the nicest rod of its kind that I have ever used.
Our editorial assistant, Jake Fowles, takes Middy’s new Xtreme M3 out to test it. Can it really handle a No30 elastic?
When I arrived in the DHP offices to find the Middy Xtreme M3 pole sat on my desk I wasn’t too sure what expect. A pole rated to a No30 elastic (I wasn’t aware elastics went that strong), dubbed the ‘Animal Tamer’. I almost certainly expected a near-unusable piece of kit.
Excellent Excellence From Tri-Cast!
Joe Carass gives the brand new Tri-Cast Excellence Pro a test with a difference!Long-term readers will know how much I like Tri-Cast rods and poles. The company makes some of the very best carbon products on the market and when it is due to release a new flagship pole, I always get excited.
The last flagship, the Trilogy Pro 2, was without doubt the best pole the company had produced. If it could improve on that then we were going to have a serious piece of pole on our hands.
Match Fishing’s chief sub editor and river aficionado, David Haynes, takes a look at an updated classic reel – the ABU 507 MkII.
Quick history lesson: Back in the days before commercials, when there was ‘just’ river fishing, the Abu 507 closed-face reel was the weapon of choice for the serious flowing-water matchman.
Bigger than the equally popular 506 model, once a few ‘insider knowledge’ adjustments had been made its push-button line release and instant line pick-up were deemed perfect for flicking a stick or waggler out and running them down the flow to haul out big bags of chub, roach and dace.
So good was it that after production ceased they changed hands on the second-hand market for many times their original cost, and top river angler Dave Harrell is known to have owned at least 11 of them at one time.
Long-reputable tackle giant Shimano has cranked up the torque yet again in the reel department for 2016, with the release of the show-stopping Stradic FK – a flagship match reel with a new no-back-wind concept!The eternal question that is often asked within tackle development is how much better can fishing tackle get? Shimano has always been respected for making quality reels, and year after year new technology is applied to produce something more advanced than ever before. Gracing the shelves of Shimano’s showroom on our recent visit was the brand-new Stradic FK, assured to tickle the taste buds of the country’s tackle aficionados!A new gear concept, known as Hagane Gear, has been applied to this reel, which provides maximum strength and efficiency throughout the tool. On the outside, the aluminium body creates the perfect protection case, within which Shimano’s X-Ship System and shielded A-RB bearings are held. Engineering expertise has been applied to enhance the fish-playing performance this reel offers.
Joe Carass checks out the Super 36, the new flagship seatbox from Matrix. We are spoilt for choice nowadays when it comes to choosing a seatbox. There seems to be no end of quality offerings around at the moment and choosing the one for you has never been trickier – they are all so good!I have long been a fan of the Matrix boxes. They took what I loved about the previous Fox MSB system and improved them by integration into the more modern frame-style boxes.
It wasn’t until the first week of September that the cat was finally let out of the bag. Joe Carass reviews the hottest pole on the 2016 block – Preston Innovations’ Response M90!The Preston Innovations Response M90 pole is one of the worst best-kept secrets in modern match fishing. Look carefully at any of the Preston consultants’ Twitter or Facebook feeds and there is likely to be a rather nice looking black and silver pole section lurking in there somewhere!We knew it was coming a long time ago but details and specifics were sketchy. It was clear that Preston was trying to get these as fully tested by the consultants as possible, while also being as tight lipped as MI5.
There are four mixes in the Supercrumb range: Lake, River, Bream and Black. Each mix has been designed for a specific scenario, as their names would suggest, and I’ll explain each one individually. Silver-fish groundbaits are all the rage at present and Joe Carass reckons he’s found a gem in the shape of the Sonubaits Supercrumb range. Sonubaits has become one of the most popular bait brands among commercial anglers.
