Shakespeare rods

[chrisjpainter]

What's the deal with Shakespeare's kit these days? I was looking at the Solitude MS Rod in particular, but the question's there for their whole new range really: Are they any good?
The stats of the Solitude MS Rod seem reasonable - 24/30T carbon, decent guides and right now selling for £25 at AD, down from £75-80. It seems the same with a lot of Shakespeare's newish range - high RRP and then massive discounts. But I don't know of anyone who actually owns one!

Has anyone taken a punt on Shakespeare rods? Any good, or is it a case of an irrelevant RRP just to look like a bargain?

 

[Alan Whitty]

My tip to you is pick one up and if you like the feel take a punt,I have a Darent Valley 11ft 0.75lb t.c. rod, I believe when I bought it was between £35-£40, cheap as chips, imo it's a nice blank, but after using it a few times I found there were too few guides on it, so eventually I took it to a local rod builder and had three rings put on and shuffled the rest to suit, after that it was still cheap as two portions, lol...

 

[mikench]

They are cheap but not nasty. I bought a Mach 3 13’ ultra lite match rod second hand a good few years ago and it’s a nice rod bring light in weight and action.It came in a quality bag and case and was apparently their take on Normark. It caught me my biggest roach with a pin at 1lb 13 oz. At their price range you cannot go wrong. I gave a couple of their Agility range away but still have a few sea rods in France. The company don’t seem to advertise much since James Robbins left.

 

[Keith M]

Shakespeare used to be one of the better companies who used to sponsor the England team back in the late 70s/80s and have some of our best match anglers on their team help design their brilliant rods Like Ken Giles and Clive Smith plus a few well known specimen anglers too.
Their top of the range rods and mid range rods were excellent; however their bottom of the range rods at that time we’re not the best.

I still have a couple of excellent rods made by Shakespeare but have not bought any rods from them for years so can’t say whether their newer rods are still as good as they were in the past.

Keith