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I don’t disagree the GTI su is very capable with big fish, I just couldn’t get on with the weight of it. The original free spirit has been brilliant to be fair. I always knew it was good but never really appreciated just how good it was until i started catching one or two from the nene this...

If the pawl is at fault it would be blatantly obvious because you would physically see excess wear or a piece of it physically missing. As said above, put a picture up so we can see it. If the pawl looks in good shape i would be looking at the spring and pivot points.

Yeah i bought a 17 and tried a 15 out. The 17 snapped on me twice through no fault of mine on the first and second time out. I liked the action a lot on the 17 but something was drastically wrong for it to break so easily. the 15 is quite a bit more through actioned for my liking. It was...

It might be but there is definitely hardness differences between the two. The duplon fore grip on the front of a lot of my rods is soft and you can leave an impression with your nail from a light press. The Eva handle parts on some of my Daiwas and the browning spheres is a lot harder and...

Never heard of a 15ft Torrix Jim. I assume it’s a float rod. Where did you get hold of that

That last Spectron I sold was similar. Just a few rings of cork between 80% of EVA. I don’t mind EVA to be fair. It’s a recent thing from having the 2 spheres but I like handling it a lot. Not the most attractive thing for a handle but function over form definitely.

Free spirit handles are bloody awful. They have done it for years on their highest quality shit aswell. Really thin hard feeling cork. Quite frankly would be hard to tell the difference between that and a broom handle littered with wood worm if you didn’t actually look at it.

It was a more tongue in cheek Micky take comment at Ian for his plastic handles rather than an actual stab at drennan cork. I don’t find the acolyte handles too bad. Yes there’s lots of filler in it but the colour match is excellent and it doesn’t fall out.

The acolyte specimen rods in my opinion belong in a category of rods that I would define as very specialised, very clever float rods designed for either large powerful fish, large floats, fast paced rivers or all of the above. I’m quite Lucky that a good friend of mine that I fish with regularly...

If it’s just cotton then you’ll be fine on a low temperature. The ones you should never wash in a machine are the velvety type Older Fox, shimano Antares, shimano stradic, normark 2000/3000 etc. anything like that and a machine wash will shrink them

I’ve heard the cork used on the hardy marksman range of rods is up there with the best of the best Never had one myself but surely as an owner of quite afew you don’t keep those bad boys rapped up do you?

At least the plastic will stop all that filler falling out of those nasty Drennan handles 😂 Every cloud 😜

It’s not a lot. 20g give or take and depending on the scales on the day. There is a huge difference in stiffness and power between them. More so than the 15% claimed.

It’s one of just a few spectrons I’ve not handled. As a spectron fan they’ve obviously caught my eye but never been priced right for me to take a blind punt on. At that length it takes something quite special to not feel too heavy. At 13ft and 14ft they obviously handle themselves very well...

As a self confessed, long float rod fanatic I’ve been hoping for that day To come and would absolutely be joining you in that Que. I was pretty gutted when the 17ft free spirit didn’t turn out to be a lot of use at all.

Top quality cork is a fortune yeah. Daiwas are about the best I’ve found for putting something really nice on off the shelf rods. Some of the old shimano rods were terrible. More fill than cork 😂

The issue with cork is the varying quality differences and this has a huge impact on how they age, clean up and generally last. Some terrible cork handles have so much filler put into the imperfections which falls out leaving great big holes to get filled with crap. I wouldn’t go near any...

Gutted for you mate. Hopefully you get it sorted. I really love the 17ft rod more so than the others. The action is awesome, very unique and deceptively capable

. I’ve owned 4 different versions of the acolyte rods since they first were introduced and given them plenty of stick. Never had a tip section fail and like Ian I’ve no interest in catching bits n pieces. The new free spirits are not great I had one break twice on me before having the money...

I wouldn’t recommend the newer version of the free spirits Alan and I’d only recommend the caliber of rods you mention there if the op is planning on targeting large specimen fish which hasn’t been mentioned. @Steve Sorrell There are, imo better 15ft rods than the acolytes but sadly none can...