Bill Rushmer reviews the Greys G-Tec 15ft Float Rod

When I assembled this rod, I was amazed at the perfect progressive to tip action allowing for quick line pick up with the power reserves to handle a good sized lump. This particularly well thought out rod has a host of quality features including top of the range SIC guides. The ringing is good with 15 well spaced rings made up of a tip, 12 intermediate twin legged and two larger three legged rings giving excellent line management.

The rod is of a four piece construction with three long sections and a detachable butt with a screw down carbon reel seat, Duplon hood and a folding keeper ring. The butt section is neatly finished partly in cork trimmed with Duplon.
As I was going to fish Marsh Farm at Milford in Surrey, I decided to field test the rod. I tackled up this rod with my trusty centre pin loaded with 0.16 mm Ultima Match Line and a tiny pole float dotted down to register the shyest of crucian bites. The terminal gear was a 18 inch hook length of 0.12 mm Ultima Match Line to a size 16 fine wire hook.

I fed the swim with a few 3 mm pellets and used a 6 mm Expanda pellet on the hook. After about 20 minutes the float disappeared. I knew as I struck it was unlikely to be a crucian and I was right, as an angry dog tench ploughed its way out towards the island. Despite the light hook length the rod was more than a match for the tench which weighed about 4 lb 8 oz. A few minutes later a similar tench found its way to my landing net. Then on the next cast, a little dip and a flick of the wrist and I was into the first crucian of the day. The line pick up as I suspected was very quick and the fish firmly hooked. Taking my time I could feel it was no tiddler and was pleased as a cracking crucian was safely in my landing net. I weighed this one in at 3 lb 2 oz and continued to fish on to catch more crucian to 3 lb 10 oz plus the odd tench. The rod had done all that was asked of it and I was very pleased that it had lived up to expectations.

Naturally I also tried the rod out on the River Thames which was coloured and carrying a lot of extra water. I decided to lay on with the crow quill float fished well over depth and a leger weight on the bottom with a 8 mm halibut pellet as bait. Panning in a mixture of 4 mm and 6 mm feed pellet, I did not get a bite for the first hour but as light started to fail the roach started to feed with a vengeance and at one stage I had 5 in five casts. All the fish were over 12 oz with the best well over a pound. The rod proved light enough to hold the bait perfectly still and rammed the hook home on virtually every bite. Certainly an excellent performance in far from ideal conditions.

Bill Rushmer

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