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IGFA Corporate
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 Having used 12ft rods to catch Pike for all my previous years fishing, I had never seen little reason to change; that was however, until I got myself a boat and a pair of 10ft Fox Elite Boat rods. There may not sound like a lot of difference in a couple of feet, but believe me, it does make a massive difference when fishing in the confinements of a boat. I soon realised that not only were these rods great for fishing afloat, but they were also ideal rods when fishing narrow venues from the bank. A 10ft rod may lack the length to really chuck baits out at range on big waters, but when it comes to under arming a float or ledger rig out on a Fenland Drain for instance, they are perfect pieces of kit for the job.
I now use these rods for nearly all of my Fenland Piking, and rarely have little reason to get my 12 footers out of the bag now. These rods come in a 3lb test curve and when coupled with a 30-50lb Fox Torque braided mainline, make a great rod for leap-frogging nearly all Drains and Rivers. These tools are perfect for playing fish from the bank, and I have never come across a time when I was left wanting for the extra couple of feet. |
 My favourite method to fish alongside these rods is a simple float ledgered deadbait. The best floats for this are definitely the Fox Pencil Deadbait float. These are very sensitive and will show a bite at the earliest stage of it developing. When covering a lot of water, moving around with a float setup is a lot easier than moving around with an alarm set up. With Pike being more difficult to track down than actually catching, a mobile approach is without doubt the best way of attacking these smaller venues, so the less clutter you carry around with you, the better.
The rods also handle livebaits very well, and even though enough strength in the butt remains to bully powerful fish away from snags, the tip is soft enough to cast lives without the risk of casting them off. When using lives, a simple free roving float fished set up is ideal, and will allow the bait to cover a lot more of the swim by itself. |
 Never think that because the rod is smaller, that it will not be as powerful either. These rods are well up to the job of subduing large predators, and since ‘downsizing’ I have caught a number of 20lb plus fish on them, with fish over 25lb included. After a recent session with a friend on a small Fenland drain, I was amazed at just how out of place my 12 footers felt on such waters. With my mate being a relative novice, I leant him my 10 footers, whilst I fished with the 12’s. In years gone by, the extra length never seemed an issue, but after using the smaller rods, the 12’s just seemed clumsy and far too long for fishing a 10 metre wide piece of drain. |
| So remember, even though a lot of 10ft rods are labelled as Boat rods, they have an awful lot more uses than just fishing from the boat. Even though I do use mine from a boat on many occasions, I can safely say that they have fully taken over when it comes to the majority of my bank fishing as well. If you’re an angler who fishes very similar waters to me, take a good think about what length rods best for you. In my opinion, when fishing the Fens, the 10 footers rule supreme! |
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Matt Rand
