Preston Feeder Feeda Rod

[Steve Arnold]

I recently broke my beloved Browning Carboxy telescopic pike rod! After 20 years of fishing many waters for many species it was a mistake on my part that left the line wrapped around a ring as I went for a big cast! At least it went with a "bang"!!!!

So at last I had an excuse to buy another rod - but what to chose?

This last few years the old pike rod had much use with a bait dropper, also as a back up for when the carp turned up when I was barbel fishing. So if I could not get a decent telescopic rod (rare beasts!) I had to look for a three piece rod. Most seemed to be 14' for the weight I wanted to cast, too long for my swims, that seemed to leave me with the Preston Feeder Feeda rod. The 5 ozs quiver tip would probably be a bonus for heavy feeder fishing during winter spates on the Lot.

The rod I bought at a bargain price online with an extra 10% discount on the day. Free delivery to France was a bonus! 92 euros delivered is a very good price when you live in deepest France!

Today I spent an hour on a broad section of the Lot casting. With 3 ozs a simple overhead cast got 100 metres. Changing to 5 ozs a gentle overhead put it around 80 metres. Not that I would advise using 5 ozs for more powerful casts, but a lob with a big feeder should see good distance without risking the blank.

I will try to get fishing with the rod in the next few days. A swim I have not fished all summer due to 12' high Japanese Knotweed is now opening up with the weed dying off. I popped down the swim and someone has already cut through some of the dead stuff. This swim is a good barbel producer and has also produced several carp to over 40 lb. The carp usually come to long range downriver techniques, this rod should cover the job.

Will update this post when the rod has seen some fish!

Does anyone have any experience of this rod?

 

[Steve Arnold]

The rain over the last few days has left the river perfect for barbel fishing so I went to bed early last night to have a dawn start this morning. When I woke too early at 1.30 am I knew everything was right, my excitement never wains when I get that instinctive sense niggling away. That feeling is rarely wrong!

So the Preston Feeder Feeda was getting its first outing. When I received it I liked the look of the rod but hated the graphics, so I added some racket grip tape. Now the rod had a "handle" it looked a lot better!

I set up at the river with a 2 oz medium cage feeder. The groundbait was made to a stiff method mix consistency so I could mould a ball around the cage as well as pack sweetcorn inside. I would guess that totalled about 5 ozs, along with a double boilie bait inside a paste ball. A decent weight to cast!

But it went out with a gentle overhead cast, probably about 60 yds. No creaks from the joints (well, maybe mine!) and I felt the rod had plenty to spare. Good start!

I set the rod in the rest, baitrunner on. This is where I normally spend a few minutes tidying my pitch and getting organised. Of course the quiver tip jabbed down and I fluffed the strike!

Out with another mega load to the same spot. This time I was watching! It did not take long and the quiver was showing the plucks and jabs of hungry fish. Some of the pulls were probably the feeder being attacked - plenty of info showing through the tip!

After a few minutes more of this the rod pulled around properly. Definitely a barbel hooked! The fish fought well in the strong flow, it took a few minutes to get a 5lb+ barbel to the net.....

I caught five more, all of similar size. The rod is a beast of a feeder rod but still has a good "feel" to it in use. I had to pack up at lunchtime but had enough action to see the rod is ideal for big river use when there is a good flow on. Should a big carp have shown up I would be confident in this rod coping as well as a carp rod would. A definite advantage to have some proper indication on the tip of fish starting to show interest, unlike the carp rods where the first sign is the rod doubling over as the fish hooks itself!

For a first outing the Preston Feeder Feeda gets a big from me!

 

[Steve Arnold]

Adding a couple of photos as I am impressed by a rod that fills a niche that I struggled to fill (now there's a double entendre!)

Some may like its bare-bones look (who remembers Ian Gillespie?), but even that was spoilt for me by the blue graphics.

So I added some grip tape, it's practical as the blank is slippery and at times you do need to grip well above the reel. Aesthetically I prefer it as well, though some may not agree.

So much better simply dressed in black!

I tested the rod as it has no stated test curve. This is purely subjective as the rod seems to have the capacity to keep soaking up the load. I felt at 2.5 lb load the curve was nowhere near the maximum. I loaded the rod past 3 lb and still felt the rod had something left. If anyone from Preston Innovations is reading this perhaps you can add some design facts?

Even the 5 ozs quiver tip proved useful for fishing rather than just chucking big feeders. Fishing a swim about 2 metres depth at around 50 metres range the 5 ozs tip took on a slight curve and registered bites very clearly.

Going back to my comment about "bare bones rods". I started sea fishing about the time there were major developments in materials and design of rods. There was a great move towards much lighter gear being used for shore fishing. Now this rod reminds me so much of what I aspired to all those years ago, I took both bass and cod to double figures on 3 ozs casting hollow glass blanks. What I would have given to have had this rod at that time!

Excuse my self-indulgence reminiscing, maybe I have shown this photo already. Photo taken by the late Ian Gillespie at the Breakaway Tackle shop in Ipswich. The rod used was self built on a Hardy Fibatube 1-3 ozs 11' blank, very much in the bare-bones style.

Must get down to the sea again, though even this new Feeda rod is unlikely to catch me another bass like that!

 

[mikench]

Cracking fish Steve. I think I have said this once but such a memorable fish deserves at least a few mentions.

 

[Steve Arnold]

Cracking fish Steve. I think I have said this once but such a memorable fish deserves at least a few mentions.

Thanks Mike, I have had many fish bigger now but never a bigger bass.

There is a little story attached to catching that fish - there always is with fishermen!

A week earlier I had been fishing surf beaches in County Kerry, Dingle etc. I had talked six other apprentices from my workplace in Ipswich into making the epic (at that time, with our cars!) journey to fish for bass. I was the only one in our group to have caught any bass from our local Suffolk beaches, I guess I saw myself as the "expert".

Needless to say that I was the only one in the group to NOT catch a bass! I know now the mistake I made - I was casting too FAR (something generally needed on the Suffolk coast).

So with a severely dented ego I set out to prove I was not a complete bass duffer!

I put what I learnt over a very few years to good use. Picked the tide, time and place (Southwold), used some big king rag I had dug.....and only cast a very short distance where the ebb tide rippled over a sandbank. Three bass were my reward, the one in the photo about 10lbs bigger than the rest!

Sometimes a great big dollop of good luck is what is really needed, but you still have to get that bait into the water!