I bought a new rod today , a toothy critters #9, 9ft. These are going cheap on tacklebargains, but I got mine from a local tackle shop.

Toothy critters pike rod plus 9 flies for £49.95


I am very impressed, it makes very light work of casting my 20g shooting head.

Home lab tests :- weight required to bend to 1/3 of length (from common cents rod testing instructions) 330g, according to the website this makes it a 14 or something but it casts a 9 or 10 nicely .

Action angle 67 degrees (on the border between medium and fast).

It throws my set up (35ft shooting head to running line) 90ft with relative ease but I didn't test distance with a pike fly on.

I have been using a Ron Thompson energetic fly 7/8 which seemed to struggle with casting backbone in the windy conditions although it had no problem subduing any of the pike. I let my Danielsson SW on 4 clicks off the full drag do most of the work and they barely took any line off me. I love the drag on this reel, it is so smooth.

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www.tungsten-beads-plus.com For Knapek, Hends, Partridge, Siman and Tungsten products

hey how have ya found the new kit?

I haven't had chance for a proper test yet.

I'll post when I get chance to give it a good try out with some different lines.

Joel

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www.tungsten-beads-plus.com For Knapek, Hends, Partridge, Siman and Tungsten products

Good price!

im sure i looked at buying one of these from harris angling about 7 years ago, i had a toothy critter fast sink line for years which served me through my first pike/ saltwater fly fishing, sadly it broke on brenig last year

Similarly I found the fast sink toothy critter line great as a value for money line. They don't seem to do the fast sink version anymore. If anyone knows otherwise, I'd be glad to here here hey are available.

I still haven't had chance to properly test the new rod, hopefully I'll be able to report back tomorrow. So far I have tried a rio outbound 9 intermediate. This actually seemed a little light to load the rod properly. I have some heavier shooting heads to try on it tomorrow one is 32g at 35ft long, the other 42g at 45 ft both intermediate lines I picked up for £6 each from tacklebargains. I just have to attach to running line.

I found a nice way of making this join is to use heat shrink tubing which I leave on. You get a small clunk as it finds its way through the rings but I like this, I can tell when the head is out even in the dark. I have also made sink tip lines from these shooting heads using half floater and half inter.

Joel

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www.tungsten-beads-plus.com For Knapek, Hends, Partridge, Siman and Tungsten products

Tried the 32g (Airflo inter. 12W shooting head) head today. This suits the rod much better and this line carries even 4-6 g streamers easily. I think the rod is a bit stiff for lines lighter than this. It handles pike well, but I've only had pike up to about 5lb on it so far.

Joel

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www.tungsten-beads-plus.com For Knapek, Hends, Partridge, Siman and Tungsten products