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Which multi purpose rod

Ian Murfin

Ian Murfin

Senior Member & Supporter
I'm thinking of investing in a pair of multi purpose rods. I'd want to use them for dead baiting for pike, close to medium range carp fishing and occasional barbel trips on the Trent when it's up.
On the face of it this seems achievable, the rods need to do fairly similar tasks for each of these situations. I'm thinking of 2.5 or 2.75 lb test curve.
I'm wondering which of the three styles would be the best alrounder or infact if they are likely to be the same rods with different labels on them.
I'm leaning towards pike rods as I do quite like a through action but would welcome any thoughts.
 
Ian Murfin said:
I'm thinking of investing in a pair of multi purpose rods. I'd want to use them for dead baiting for pike, close to medium range carp fishing and occasional barbel trips on the Trent when it's up.
On the face of it this seems achievable, the rods need to do fairly similar tasks for each of these situations. I'm thinking of 2.5 or 2.75 lb test curve.
I'm wondering which of the three styles would be the best alrounder or infact if they are likely to be the same rods with different labels on them.
I'm leaning towards pike rods as I do quite like a through action but would welcome any thoughts.
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Definitely achievable.
There’s a lot of similarities between barbel and lighter pike rods and the main difference really is in the number of and size of the guides.
Dave lumb even said to me only the other week when I ordered my second P2 that it makes a great flood and snag barbel rod and he’s used the p2 for heavier barbel fishing. The p1 is 12 feet 2.75 and the p2 is 11 feet 2.5.
I bet either would for fill your requirements very nicely.
I wouldn’t use a barbel rod for pike fishing simply because in general the guides ain’t up to it
Carp rods ok if you can find one with a nice through action. Too tippy and you’ll throw soft dead baits off the hooks and possibly bump a few barbel off as well. A quality lighter pike rod could well be your “multi purpose rod”
 
Just mentioning the Daiwa Powermesh B2 range as they have the test curves you mention.

I bought a 2.25 tc Powermesh some weeks ago but have only used it once since the lockdown was eased a little here in France. No fish on it yet but it feels well balanced and casts a largish feeder OK. As long as your not expecting to cast outsize baits I see no reason for it not working for pike fishing.

Guides are something new to me though, I mentioned them recently in another post, hard coated stainless framed guides though the tip looks to have a more normal liner.

Blame my blanking on being limited to three hours and 20 k max from home for "exercise"!!!!!

Good to enjoy a few casts with the new rod though...
IMG_20201128_163259.jpg
 
Steve Arnold said:
long as your not expecting to cast outsize baits I see no reason for it not working for pike fishing.
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Only the guides would possibly cause you problems. A lot of pike fishing especially on running water is done with a slider float which is fished over depth to a stop knott.
although it’s not very big you’ll soon notice it when you try to crank it through or cast it out an 8mm tip ring. Light duty single leg intermediate guides would likely bend too with the knott clobbering them
proper dead bait pike rods will have 12-15mm tips guides for this very reason and the intermediates are usually very heavy duty
 
Steve. Ian.
The rods I use when a bit of water on Non tidal Trent or Severn. They are a joy to use with lovely playing action. Lobbing out 8oz underarm no problem. I think a bit soft for pulling trebles home and underfoot playing 20lb+ pike

However my piking is done with a Fox Predator 2.75. And this fits the bill for me on the Wye, casting out 8oz mackerel on float setup. Cheap rod about £90. At a push it would be ok for really heavy water barbel fishing.
 
Hi i do have a pair of harrison dark carbon 2.5 barbel rods for sale @£400 inc postage .
But i would not think of using them for pike fishing you will have to find some purpose made 2.75 for piking
Pm me if ypur interested in my rods ill enquire at my local tackle shop .
He mentuoned that some guy had asked the owner to order some rods i think 3lb tc wynchwoid make i think ill find out the price
If your ok with 4 rods ill total them up message you they can be sent alltogether by courier to your address.tbanks peter.
 
Thanks for the offer Peter but I really am trying to tick all the boxes with a single pair of rods. I think this rules out barbel rods due to the smaller eyes and stop knot issue.
Incidentally I wonder why barbel rods do have smaller eyes, is there any specific benefit or has it just evolved that way?
 
Ian Murfin said:
Thanks for the offer Peter but I really am trying to tick all the boxes with a single pair of rods. I think this rules out barbel rods due to the smaller eyes and stop knot issue.
Incidentally I wonder why barbel rods do have smaller eyes, is there any specific benefit or has it just evolved that way?
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"why do barbel rods have smaller eyes"......."stop knot issue" ???

I wonder if there is a definitive answer to these questions!

My personal experience of spinning rods, light surf rods, general purpose rods, pike rods etc,etc,etc is that unless the eye is SILLY small a decent stop knot flies through without any problem. If others have real problems with stop knots and some guide styles I wonder if the guide is the real problem!

The other "thing" about guides on this forum is that single leg guides have very much a flavour of Marmite about them! :rolleyes:

For me I like Marmite .......and find single leg guides work well. ;)
 
I agree with you Steve. I have some old pike rods that I used over 40 years ago and they have rather small eyes by today's standards. Never had any problems with stop knots. Also I love single leg rings. Maybe I'm not as rough on my rods as some are. 😁
 
Peter T Thomas said:
Hi i do have a pair of harrison dark carbon 2.5 barbel rods for sale @£400 inc postage .
But i would not think of using them for pike fishing you will have to find some purpose made 2.75 for piking
Pm me if ypur interested in my rods ill enquire at my local tackle shop .
He mentuoned that some guy had asked the owner to order some rods i think 3lb tc wynchwoid make i think ill find out the price
If your ok with 4 rods ill total them up message you they can be sent alltogether by courier to your address.tbanks peter.
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Bloody hell Peter 😁...just drop the price of the rods and you should move them on no problem. Got to be a better option than the faff of going your local tackle shop and buying some pike rods to through in as part of the deal?! 😂
 
My question is the other way round really. You might be able to cope with getting stop knots through small eyes but what do you gain with using small eyes? Or what is the disadvantage of big eyes?
 
Ian Murfin said:
My question is the other way round really. You might be able to cope with getting stop knots through small eyes but what do you gain with using small eyes? Or what is the disadvantage of big eyes?
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The advantage of bigger eyes is less resistance when casting so pike rods and carp rods putting out long distances will gain from them. A barbel rod for most rivers doesn’t need them and in cases where you want them for say the tidal Trent the guides are bigger on heavier TC rods. The major disadvantage is obviously weight as well as bigger footprint. If they are not needed on a barbel rod then there is no reason to add unnecessary weight to one putting them on.
pike rods are the worst for guides been put under strain. Not just with stop knots but with anglers hanging trebles off them with 1/2 a pound of bait. Casting weights are obviously a lot heavier usually too. Small single legged guides won’t last on a pike rod but they can be perfectly adequate on a specialist rod
Carp rods have really big guides depending on the TC simply because of the casting distance required on some venues. They don’t undergo the same strain as a pike rod and you can get away with those flimsy light minima things or single legs if needed to keep weight down.
 
So it seems it's not the rod or guides, it's operator malfunction! As I always suspected! :D

Richard, I will agree about the Minima single leg frames as they are far too soft. The single leg guides on my new Daiwa Powermesh Barbel rod are MUCH stiffer, as are the single leg guides I fitted to my Sportex carp rod converted to barbel floodwater use.

As for butt guides, I usually do fit sturdy full framed guides, if anything is going to take a clobbering that's the one!

Even with surf rods I have used single leg guides for the finer tip section. Not too small though, you can have a leader knot travelling at very high speed going through! The difference in "feel" and balance with lighter guides is surprising even on a beachcaster. Certainly the rod recovers quicker on the cast!

I hated that Sportex carp rod when it had the manufacturers guides fitted. Now it has a little "life" about it, balances better and recovery on the cast is almost crisp. Difficult to find the words to describe rod action, but it changed from clumsy to enjoyable to use.

Going back to stop knots, I will be piking this month and plan to use the Powermesh for some lightish float work. Will see how those guides cope, they are reasonably large diameter internally.
 
I prefer slightly bigger ringing on my specialist rods, reasoning that it’s a lot easier to deal with weed on the line when playing a fish by bringing it through the rings are dealing with it by the reel.
 
Joe Winstanley said:
I prefer slightly bigger ringing on my specialist rods, reasoning that it’s a lot easier to deal with weed on the line when playing a fish by bringing it through the rings are dealing with it by the reel.
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That’s the reason Martin Bowler gives for the bigger top section rings on the promo video for his Drennan Barbel rods.
 
Maybe of interest or maybe not but the internal diameters of the same 'size' guide are seldom the same and can vary significantly.
For example (all size 8) - Minima 7.1 mm, Fuji alconite KWAG 5.3 mm, Fuji BSVOG 5.0 mm, Kigan 3D 5.7 mm.
Cheers
Bob
 
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