For a very reasonable £200 or thereabouts (RRP: Akios F-15 £229.95, Fathom CS £195.99) they slot beautifully into the gap in my beach armoury. They are more robust than small CTs, have superior drags and effortless retrieve even under high line tension. Far more important, they are excellent and versatile fishing tools, easy to tune and control. Having tested this pair at distances longer and shorter, in good weather and bad, and with a range of rods and sinkers, I find that the Nitron and the Fathom cast as far and as easily as I shall ever need. This is the performance ballpark I focus on when reviewing beach rods and reels. Except for a small elite, few anglers can put a baited rig more than about 125 metres out to sea. When it comes to distance, no reel is better than its owner. In the greater scheme of things, none of this hyper-performance stuff really matters. The jury will be out for some considerable time before the picture becomes clear. Will top casters put in the time and effort to extract the very best from them? Only a reel of exceptional promise will lure them away from their customised CTs. Design alone means that the Penn will inevitably lag by a quite a few metres. In the hands of maybe a dozen tournament casters, the F-15 should be right up there with the respected 6500CT-type reels. If so, the company has succeeded to similarly high standards but in a slightly different direction from Akios. Being a child of the well-established Fathom family, the Casting Special seems more evolution than revolution, as if somebody at Penn had spotted an opportunity to widen the appeal. If Akios’s aim was to produce a reel with the casting finesse of a 6500CT in a rugged and thoroughly practical beach multiplier, then they have nailed it. It would take at least a season to get to the guts of it, but I am already confident that my quest for a 6500CT-type reel replacement has ended. Little wonder, for hardly anyone, had actually tried or even seen either reel.īy chance, or maybe by divine intervention, both turned up for Sea Angler to review. The few sensible and thoughtful views lay half-buried in the mess, but for the most part, I learned nothing of value. Squabbling amongst themselves, the flock pecked away, the inevitable result being a digital version of what real starlings leave behind in my garden. I had hoped to extract solid information from wise owls. Are they any good? Clicking my way through the jungle of woeful ignorance called social media landed me in forums where both reels were being dissected. The Penn Fathom II Casting Special and the Akios Nitron F-15. I want a multiplier that casts like a 6500CT but is tough as tungsten, friendly and compact. Awesomely willful and spiteful to cast, heavy and awkward. Eventually, I got hold of one, and indeed it was awesome. He knew somebody who knew somebody who had a pal in the trade… yes, the Speedmaster really was awesome. It would smash all tournament records, the pundits claimed First, in the 1980s, came the Shimano Speedmaster, so hyped by the media that it almost achieved legendary status before it hit the shops. New reels arrived that seem to answer my prayers, but they never quite measured up. Adequate for clean ground, they crash and burn in the rough stuff. Their saving grace is that they cast supremely well, but as practical fishing tools most of them are limited in capacity, retrieve power and durability. Fishing open beaches where distance is often the key, I have long standardised on 6500CT-type multipliers, sticking with them because there was nothing better for long range work.
0 kommentar(er)
