of the fladen 7ft #3

i picked the rod up sat morn and this is what i found about the rod



the cork has a fair bit of filler in it as i would of expected for a rod of this price,the end of the reel seat has a splayed end with a holographic bung in the end with fladen written in an eye shape, to stop the screw fitting coming off and this had a somewhat sharpish edge to it which was quickly sorted with a flat needle file ,if left as it was it could possibly of cut the coating on the fly line if you happened to press it against it ,what i wouldnt of minded was the cork to of tapered a bit more to meet the blank where it enters the handle,however it doesnt affect anything and maybe im being over critical for a rod of this price as to finish wise.




the blank itself is quite a nice burgandy colour,but not to keen on the "fladen vantage" in holographic silver written down the blank ,however a quick coat of black nail varnish will sort that !!!



the overall 3 piece construction is for the price quite good ,with well fitting joints with no play in them,something other rod manufacturers could learn at times,the whippings are quite well finished in a lighter burgandy tipped with a few wraps of gold to finish off,there were no threads showing through and all were covered with a smooth finish ,the only other criticsm is that maybe the snakes could of done to be a little bit larger ,but on the day (sunday)it didnt matter ?? see bottom after pic !!




the blank is a pleasing less than pencil thin as you can see in pic ,the action IMO was from middle to tip without putting a line through it ,and proved to be so on sunday !!




on sunday i didnt get the time to take it up to the beck in previous pics so i took to a local c&r for 4hrs workout well at £6 why not ,i put the orvis la1 on loaded with a chopped dt4# i wanted to over line for trying shortcasting on the beck etc and it didnt let me down with only around 2mtrs of line out it loaded and cast well ,so i tried some longer casts with it and it put the full chopped line out to the backing without to much effort in a moderate breeze ,i dare say it may perform even better with a wf5# which i may try at the weekend whether they have underated this rod i cant say for sure ,however i had no intentions of using a 3# through it for the becks as to wanting easy loading etc, within the 4hrs i was there i had 7 bows roughly around the same size as in pic, a couple slightly larger,in playing the fish the rod took on a very pleasing arc with no visible flat spots which to be honest i did expect it at this price, i was totally wrong a nice actioned rod with a quite surpising amount of power spare through to the butt section , ihope people find this helpfull if they are thinking of buying one ,apart from what i have put here ,GO GET ONE for the price they are a damn fine little rod .





bruce.