The following notes comprise our suggestions for fishing tackle for beginners who are contemplating buying their first pole. In this section we are dealing with all poles except those specifically designed for carp fishing with heavy elastics. We talk about carp poles in a separate section.
The popularity of pole fishing has grown immensely in the last few years. Much of the credit for this must be given to the tackle manufacturers who continue to produce cheaper, lighter, stronger poles each season. The pole gives you total control of your tackle whilst float fishing, allowing you to use much lighter rigs, and thus fooling many more fish into taking your bait.
Let me tell you about my local river, and how tactics have evolved since the popularity of the pole has occurred. Our club (Leatherhead & District A.S.) controls a length of the river Mole in Surrey. The river is between 10 and 20 metres wide, quite shallow with an average depth of about 2 - 3 feet. The predominant species is chub, and all of our competitions are won with nets of between 10 and 40 lbs, depending on river conditions. Before the pole gained such popularity, you had to fish a waggler or stick float, and on windy days this was an absolute nightmare, it was impossible to control the tackle, and very few fish would be caught. The advent of the pole allowed us to fish all of the far side hiding places, and catches improved dramatically. Nowadays it is inconceivable that you could fish a match on the Mole without taking a pole. Of the 50 or so swims on our stretch, I would now, given normal conditions, fish 45 of them with a pole. What a dramatic change in 10 years. Don't get me wrong, there are times, especially in the winter with increased flow, when the stick float is unbeatable, but for the vast majority of situations the pole is number one choice.
Unless your local river is very fast, such as the Kennet or Hampshire Avon, your catches WILL improve if you use the pole. The control that it gives you over your float tackle is superb, therefore your bait acts naturally in the water. The pole lets you use smaller, lighter floats, ensuring that you see more bites. The distance between float and pole tip is much shorter than when fishing a rod and line, therefore you will hit more bites. All in all, the pole is THE item of tackle that should be in every anglers rod holdall. Ignore it at your peril, or go with the flow and join the pole fishing revolution.
All of the items mentioned below are available from the discount fishing tackle shop on our site, and the staff at the shops will be pleased to help. Just explain that you've been reading the beginners pages on the web site, and that you need a bit of help.
Poles - all modern poles are designed to be fished with elastic running inside the top one, two or three sections. This elastic provides a shock absorber between the pole and a fighting fish. The pole elastic must be matched to the strength of the line and hooklink that you are using, and that should be matched to the size and species of fish that you are expecting to catch. To give you a couple of examples, from one extreme to the other, for roach fishing on a local canal we might use No 3 elastic to 1.5 lb B.S. rig line to a size 22 hook on 12 oz hook length. For fishing my local river Mole I use number 8 elastic, 3lb high tech rig line, and a 2lb high tech hook length. If fishing a local lake, where there is the possibility of hooking a large tench or small carp, I would tackle up with number 10 or 12 elastic, and a rig made entirely from 3lb high tech line. In each case its essential to match your line with the elastic being used.
Getting back to the actual poles, each pole is designed with a range of elastics in mind. A specialist canal pole would be designed for using elastics in the range of number 2 through number 6, whilst a specialist carp pole would be designed for elastics up to number 16 or even 20.
For our general purpose pole, we want something capable of handling elastics in the range 4 to 12. We are looking for a pole of at least 11 metres in length, 12.5 would be better, but they are more expensive. Luckily for us, most of the modern poles, even the cheaper models, perform well at lengths up to 11 metres. Once we start looking at longer ones, the cheaper models appear to take on the shape of a banana at long lengths. Expensive poles (many of them can cost over £2,000) are lighter, stiffer, and better balanced than their cheaper counterparts, allowing the angler to fish efficiently at 14 15 or 16 metres, but these are specialist tools, built for the top match anglers, and not of interest to us here.
Right, back to our search for the perfect pole for a beginner to pole fishing. If the pole has extra top kits, so much the better, else we'll just have to buy a couple of spares. We should aim for a minimum of three tops, each fitted with different strength elastic, thus allowing us to use the pole for a variety of fishing without the need for changing the elastics. If the majority of our fishing is done on one water, fishing for one type of fish, then it makes sense to have two of the top kits set up with identical elastics. For example, on the pole that I use on the river Mole, I have two tops fitted with number 8 elastic, thus allowing me to set up two different rigs at the start of the session, maybe a shallow rig and a heavier one for fishing on the bottom. On my carp pole I've got two tops elasticated with number 14 elastic, although in this case I'd probably set up both tops with identical rigs, so that I can switch over when the first rig gets 'trashed' by a hard fighting carp.
We should expect to pay between £100 - £200 for our 11 metre pole, and in truth, there are so many poles in this price range that I'm reluctant to recommend any particular model, I suggest that you talk to one of our retailers, tell them exactly what you're looking for, and see what they come up with. There are plenty of bargains to be had in this very competitive corner of the marketplace.
Line - I recommend that you use the modern high tech lines for your pole fishing. Lines such as Pro Micron, Silstar Match Team or Daiwa Super Shinobi all make excellent rig and hook length lines. These lines are thinner than the more conventional ones such as Maxima, and have very little stretch, but provided that they are used in conjunction with correctly elasticated poles, they are excellent.