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13 ft Rods

Adam Wylie

Adam Wylie

Senior Member & Supporter
Sorry if this has been debated before,but why are the likes of free spirit and Harrison's making 13ft rods for barbel fishing ??
Is it fashion,for specialist purpose,Why???
I would have thought that most River Anglers wouldn't have The technique to compress this sort of rod for optimum casting ?
As for keeping more line out of the water , well surely that would be minimal compared with 12ft rod ??
Just personal preference ?? 🤔
Tidal Trent Anglers seem to infer they need one?
Would be nice to hear your opinions please !
Thanks in Advance👍
 
I’ve been doing some “ in the river” and on the bank float fishing this season with ok results
In the river I could get away with a 12 or 13’ rod but it is better for mending the line with the longer rod
Mindful that you’re generally using much lighter lines for barbel than when ledgeringI think the longer rods are better for applying pressure on lighter line
Sorry physics isn’t my strong point but someone did explain it to me and I’m sure someone will be along to explain
16’ is brilliant for playing fish and mending line period but a bit unwieldy in the river but great off the bank and long trotting
I’ve been using an old 13’ Daiwa Connoisseur and it’s coped admirably with barbel to just under 9lb with 5lb straight through
But it’s as light as a feather - not sure about the GTIs or Free Spirits
 
I picked up a prototype 13 foot rod labeled 'Leeda Epic Barbel' which turned out to be the Wychwood 13 foot Maximizer rod.
A powerful progressive action and very useful on a flooded river with bigger weights.
 
Dunno. Depends how you look at it. If you’ve got X amount of thousands of gallons of water pushing on 10m of line every minute below the surface and you reduce that by 5% from increasing the rod angle it might be quite noticeable. I know for a fact my 12ft rods are a lot more useful than my 11ft rods when the nene is carrying afew feet. There’s noticeably less pressure on a large bow of line.
whether that’s the case on a large river like the Trent between 12 and 13 I don’t know because it’s not my style of fishing
 
Using a 13 footer just to keep line out of the water is neither here nor there imo. It does make me laugh when you see these expensive pods with the rods 90 degrees onto the water etc. Will only really gain anything if your fishing over halfway or even to the far bank, not much though tbh. I have lots of experience with 13 foot Barbel rods and even had 3 of the fox 15s. 80% of the time a 12 footer will do the job, only my opinion here though. Then, if fishing the lower tidal, far bank fishing or in flood then the 13 footer comes into the equation. All the 13s I have used, Ballista 13, free spirit 13 and Chimera 4 13s, just give you that extra bit of power, extra reach, that bit of fudge factor to get that Barbel on the bank. I even used it on my local river Dearne in flood, to land my PB. Just not to be undergunned and it paid off. Like I said initially 80% of the time my 12footers are used instead.
 
The main reason I have gone to 13ft rods are they give a slight reach advantage over the inside rocks on the Trent. They also offer a slight advantage to a lunging fish at the net the additional length gives a little more than a shorter rod. All in all 13ft has no disadvantages of an 11 or 12ft and a couple of the aforementioned advantages so why not.
 
Ditto with the rocks on the tidal,the 13ft rod does give a bit more confidence during those often last ditch efforts of a good barbel to escape the landing net.
 
Just thought I would mention that I have the HI S 12 ft HW AND THE 13ft HW.
There is only actually 10" difference in length??
 
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