rob.smith4 wrote:
: Hi i am looking to buy a pole for the new season,have not had one
: before and have been looking at the improve your coarse fishing mag
: and there are a lot of poles going quite cheap,would just like a bit
: of advice,only have a couple of hundred pound spare, there are a lot
: there some with free pole rigs etc.
: Would an 11m pole be okay for a beginner with spare top 3 kit
: whatever that is.
: Sorry starting to ramble.
: Any advice much appreciated.

When you start to use the pole, the benefits are apparent almost
immediately - with rod and reel there is way too much slack line between
your right arm and the bait on the bottom of the lake resulting in lots of
missed bites etc - with the pole, once you've plumbed the depth and balanced
everything so that the bait is *exactly* where you want it, then the
slightest movement of the bait is easily detected and strikes are much
quicker in actually hooking the fish.
Pick whichever pole takes your fancy, Maver make good poles as do Browning
(but stay away from the margin poles - I got one last year and it's next to
useless for carp), 11 or 12 metres is enough to begin with as they can be
cumbersome to use at first, especially if it's windy!
I wouldn't read into the free rigs and free accessories stuff too much, rigs
are cheap and I've never bought one for 3 years anyway - it's better to make
your own.
You really need a spare top three kit or maybe even two top threes if you're
targeting carp as they can easily break and if your in a match you will need
to have a spare, if you're mostly going for silverfish etc, you will need
fairly small elastication maybe 2/4/6 but if you're going for carp then
12/14/16/18 depending upon the size of fish you are targeting, if you're
going for a mixture, then a good all round (and fairly cheap) is the maver
grim reaper - it's strong and sturdy for the carp and responsive enough for
the finesse required for the roach/bream/perch etc.
If you buy from a local tackle shop, the shopkeeper will elasticate it for
you for just the cost of the elastication kit and elastic after a while you
can do it yourself, once you've learned where everything goes.
You'd be wise to buy a cupping kit if your going for silverfish, for carp, I
use the bottom of 500 ml coke bottles cut off at about 3 inch from the
bottom which hold a good sized handful of pellets/groundbait/maggots etc -
this is where your spare top three comes in!! - when your on the bank, one
top kit has your rig and bait on and the other has the cup for feeding,
simply bait up your hook then take off the top 3 and slip on the other, bait
up the spot, and drop your hookbait straight into it.

Good luck!