This superb little chair from Carpstar will pleasantly surprise a lot of carp, specimen and pleasure anglers much as it surprised me. For starters, I’m not familiar with the brand name Carpstar and even a bit of an internet search turns up very little. Yet from angling ‘obscurity’ they have served up a quality product that offers flexibility which should appeal to most anglers.
The lightweight recliner is, as its name suggests, designed to be a lightweight ‘stalking-type’ chair, but rather than just produce a spartan seat, they seem instead to have stripped-back a larger, luxury carp chair.
When I first removed it from the box I knew I was looking at a real gem of a chair and the quality of material was immediately obvious, but what struck me most was the amount of features crammed into what I could tell was not a heavy chair. This was even more surprising when I considered that – at its current sub-£30 price tag – it fits into the ‘budget’ category.
First there is the fully padded, over-sized mattress, which extends to cover all of the framework, giving the seat a generous width of 20 inches/51cm, which helps to make the seat more comfortable, even for the larger angler. The covering material is very thick and has a good inch of foam padding sandwiched inside it, which is generous stuffing for a lightweight chair.
When it comes to reclining, the multi-position adjustable back reclines safely to almost 180 degrees and feels pretty solid there, even though it would be rare you’d want to recline it quite that far! The large hand-wheels make the adjustment quick and easy too.
I gave the seat its first try-out on a trotting session before the river season ended, where I visited several swims during the day. The chair performed well, I was comfortable all day and in between swims, carrying the chair wasn’t a hindrance. I thought I’d see if this chair also fitted the Korum Ruckbag, much as the Cyprinus Stalk-Lite chair does and although the Carpstar chair fits and can be carried in this way, the frame shape means it doesn’t stay where it should on a long walk and digs into the spine a bit; this can hardly be taken as a criticism of the chair – inter-brand compatibility is rare in any product – just a practical observation.
When I reviewed a similar stalking chair a few months ago, some of the comments from FishingMagic members suggested that the legs were missing a few features which might have made it the perfect chair. Well, this Carpstar model manages to pack in all of the leg features which were suggested!
It’s equipped with a set of hinged mud feet to prevent the chair sinking into soft ground. The leg height adjustment is infinitely adjustable thanks to a spring-loaded friction mechanism, meaning even the smallest adjustments can be made to the seat base height at each corner. Also, the rarest but seemingly most sought-after design feature is the ability to lock the leg carriages in position to prevent the familiar ‘backside on the ground, feet in the air’ scenario which occurs when the back legs fold away as one takes a seat. The Carpstar chair has a simple spring-loaded pin which locks the back legs (and in turn the occupant’s backside) where they should be. The large, knurled grip serves its function well, although a drop of superglue on the thread it screws onto will stop it working free, long-term.
With the legs fully in, the height of the base from the floor is 28.5cm (11.25in) at the front and 24cm (9.5in) at the rear. With the legs fully extended, these heights are 43cm (17in) front and 34cm (13.5in) rear, so it will comfortably accommodate most anglers and will be comfortably capable of seating you in a level position in the most lumpy of river pegs or nestling in low when stalking carp.
Despite all of these features, this chair is surprisingly lightweight at just 4.75 Kg, or 10lb 7.5oz, and it folds to a very compact size, so it can be tucked under the arm or carried on a shoulder strap without burdening the angler with unnecessary weight or bulk on long treks to venues.
These Carpstar chairs have a retail price of £79.99, but Tackle Discounts have a limited number available at a heavily discounted £34.99 and I think with so many features for that price tag, they’re excellent value for money.
Whoever Carpstar are, if they can continue to produce kit of this quality and standard of design, then some of angling’s bigger names might have cause to worry.
You can buy the chair direct from Tackle Discounts HERE
