Preston Innovations Mini Float Rod

It’s eleven foot long, it has a very nicely shaped handle of cork and rubberised foam. Five triple-legged rings, five single-legged rings and a tip ring. Neat black whippings in the quality of finish you’d expect in the Carbonactive range, and a screw down reel seat.

A bit of a gimmick, do you think? I certainly don’t. I think this is a radical approach to float fishing and one that many anglers, match, pleasure, or specimen, would do well to consider. First let’s go back a few years.

Back in the late 50s and very early 60s, built cane was the material that most top notch rods were made from. Because of its weight and flexibility, most float rods were offered around 11 feet or just over. Then came hollow fibre glass and the standard became the 12 feet rod, like the Hardy Matchman with exceptional rods, like the Abu Mark 6 Zoom, at 13 feet.

With the coming of carbon fibre, everything changed and 13 and 14 feet float rods are the de facto standard even amongst the very cheapest. Many rods are also offered in 15, 16, 17, and even up to 20 feet. These rods do have a purpose and some are nice and light enough to handle, providing you have the room to swing them. However, in the movement away from the short rods of old, I believe we lost something.

Many times I would have chosen or would have liked to have fished swims with overhanging trees. This could have been on a small shallow lake or a narrow river with a nice glide running through a thicket of bushes. In either case, it’s not the place for long rods, even the standard 13 footer, since you’ll either break the rod or your patience, whichever.

At this stage there’s a difficult decision to make for you have two choices – there’s a two sectioned model or a three sectioned model. Which to choose? It may not be that difficult after all since the three piece would probably suit matchmen more as it would fit nicely into most holdalls. It is, I understand, a little softer in the curve, but does offer the same overall strength.

The two piece rod would definitely suit the specimen and stalking type of angler since it could be kept in its made-up state in the side pockets of most quivers. You would need a protector sock to go over the tip though to avoid breaking one if it caught on anything, although it does come with its own full length, heavy protective sleeve. It could be the perfect accompaniment to the ubiquitous barbel rod and offer a change of style in the right swim.

It’s the two piece model I’ve been testing and the through action is truly amazing. If only those old cane rods had been as good. Graham Marsden told me that Preston designed Carbonactive rods to be able to lift 1 kilogram off the ground and although I wouldn’t recommend anyone to try this with their own rod, take it from me, they will. I tried it!

Why Short Rods?

An eleven foot rod can get you into those tight swims and not only that, a short rod gives you a greater amount of control especially when bringing a fish to a waiting landing net. Another situation where shorter rods have a definite advantage is in a boat, particularly a short boat like my old one. Ten foot six inches long and a thirteen foot rod with a little tangle on the end is not a nice situation to deal with. Even with my new bigger boat, an eleven foot rod is much easier to handle and I don’t need all of that extra length to fish with from a boat.

Preston designed this rod for some of those cramped swims that you sometimes get on commercial-type lakes where most anglers would fish the margins anyway. It is true that you can’t set a fixed waggler float to any great depth on a short rod, but I find I can cast a float set to six feet deep quite well and that more than covers the depth of most commercials, small natural lakes and narrow rivers. There’s only the odd gravel pit that might drop to 11 or 16 foot straight off and for those you’ll either reach for the longer rod or use a slider float.

If you’re still not convinced, just think of all the fisheries you have access to and the swims you can’t presently use because of overhanging branches or bushes either side of the peg. Perhaps you don’t even realise how many there are because until now you have avoided them completely knowing you haven’t got the room. In fact, I’ll wager that if you had one of these short rods, you’d use it on far more occasions than you would any of the longer rods!

They’re also the perfect rod for the canal!

On Test

First of all I needed to test its casting ability. On the same small pond where we held the Junior Angling Academy, I fixed it up with a 3xAAA crystal waggler. My target area was by an island about 15 metres away and with a short rod, I thought I would need to give the cast a bit of wellie. WRONG! The float and end tackle ended well up in a tree on the island so after recovering all the tackle (luckily) it was back to the drawing board.

Jeff fishing the mini rod in a tight swim

Next cast I put the brakes on by feathering the lip of the spool carefully. After a while I’d got the measure of it and casting was a sheer joy, even casts of 35 and 40 metres were easily possible with little effort required. That day I didn’t have any real monsters, just a few carp up to around two pounds that were no problem at all for this lovely little rod.

Next, I had to find one of those awkward swims where I have in the past had to walk by simply because a thirteen feet rod is forever tangling in the trees. This is a small feeder stream to the Thames, heavily overgrown with odd branches forever falling over to further frustrate the angler. However, with this rod it was no problem at all. I didn’t need an overhead cast since the river is only 20 feet wide and most of the opposite bank from halfway across is unfishable due to the tangle of branches.

I found I could manage a short trot downstream with a light waggler and within the swim I managed to find some small chub, some nice little perch, and roach, dace and the odd bleak. There have been many match days when I would have liked a small bag like that in the first two hours. It was enjoyable even though conditions weren’t at their best for this little river and the rod showed just how forgiving it was with the smaller fish, not a single one bumped off.

I still haven’t given up hope of catching some bigger carp in the 6-8lbs bracket and may come back to any accompanying thread on this to update you. Keep watching!

	Jeff Woodhouse’s Verdict
	Well, if you haven’t already guessed I am really and truly in love with this little rod. I can see that on almost every trip in the future, this will be the first to go into the holdall or quiver. For the matchman, it has to be a must, another of those tools that on the right day could give you a definite edge! If you share the love that I have for fishing impossible little swims in the most unusual spots, then this has got to be a rod that goes on your Christmas list. Trust me, it will be a decision that you will never ever regret and you will have a rod that you will enjoy more and more each time you use it. For the Preston Carbonactive quality, which is top notch, I would normally award 9 stars, but since this rod applies thinking outside of the box (marketing speak) in a very positive way, it has to be the full monty – 10 stars!