Wychwood Wildrun

[donnieW]

Has anyone tried the Wychwood Wildrun spinning rod? It looks nice, feels good, casts well, handles fish no problem............and falls apart at the handle! My first one lasted two weeks (I kept using it with a split in the wood on the reel seat) and when the liner came out of the tip ring I sent it back. The replacement came and snapped on the second cast - disappointing!! The next replacement snapped at the handle tonight on my FIRST cast. There is a serious design fault here - avoid it like the plague.

[buntinbee]

I had a similar experience with one of the Diawa spinning rods last year. I can't recall which model it was, just that it was a four piece 10' rod. I was delighted with my purchase right up until it snapped at the top section while casting, first day out. Fortunately it was towards the end the day and I had already had a fish - 100% record for that rod!
Last month I bought a Shimano Nexave from E bay, thinking that I had got a real bargain at 27 quid. Happy enough with the rod too, it seems robust enough without being heavy and the build quality is fine.
I checked out this site though
www.wickfordangling.co.uk/shimano_predator/spinning_rods.htm
and was surprised at how reasonable the price of the Shimano range of spinning rods is.

[rpsalmon]

Many years ago I bought, what I thought was "down market tackle" being a shimano spinning rod, because my "less than wonderful" Hardy favourite snapped. At that time there wasn't much choice on the market and thought the Shimano wouldn't snap until I received a custom made spinning rod from a rod builder in Glasgow. I have used that cheap shimano spinning rod with a multiplier over all these years and would now hate to lose it. I think this sort of tackle is designed and built on such straight forward principles/materials that there is very little that can go wrong, in the case of a spinning rod, as long as there is an appropriate strength to play a fish then why pay £350 for a Hardy (and like many modern rods-those "new" Hardy Perfections have a reputation for breaking!)?
If you want to go top end for spinning rods I don't think you can do better than a Greys Greyflex or Abu Accuflex, both cheap and with a lifetime warranty, and I state this because I bought both of them as guest rods after seeing a review of spinning rods in the Feb 06 edition of T&S and found them to be fine rods. But looking at the above details on Shimano spinning rods I see that I may be getting another spinning rod from ebay soon, and hopefully at next to no cost! I would not buy a Wychwood rod because the company's reputation is such that I would expect it to perform poorly or break.

[robbie]

Daiwa do make a range of rods, and they do have some excellent top grades, maybe you had some bad luck. Shimano and ABU are well known in fishing circles other than Salmon, and are highly thought of as well as competitively priced. There is in fact a Lure Anglers Society. these boys will know what is what. I think they have a web site somewhere,

[turrifftackle]

Wychwood are now owned as a brand name by Leeda.

They were always known for quality product at slightly up market prices.

They have expanded the brand but to enable them to appeal to a greater market have compromised on the quality Imo.

I do sell the rods in question and have had no trouble with them but in general you will have to go a long way to better a shimano spinning rod.

Frank

[alan1]

Buntinbee, which Shimano Nexave rod did you get? I'm in the market for a new spinning rod for my forthcoming trip to the Annan and need a rod that is up to the job of taming a salmon (if I'm lucky enough to connect with one!). Haven't got a fortune to spend so your purchase pricked up my ears. Any thoughts from Frank would also be most welcome

Alan

[turrifftackle]

Hi

10' Shimano Nexave under 50 squid 10-30 gram


Frank

[buntinbee]

Yes Turrif tacke, that was the one.

[alan1]

Thanks lads. I was in a tackle shop in North Wales at the same time that the ABU representative was there. He extolled the virtues of a Berkley 10ft spinning rod that the shop had in and said it was well capable of the demands of salmon fishing (Berkley are owned by Abu, so he would say that!). Anyway, I was very impressed with what he had to say and would always trust Abu and their reps and the rod looked perfect apart from a cheap see-through plastic rod bag. The tackle dealer had already tried to sell me a (what looked like an inferior) rod for £60 so I knew this one was going to be pricey but how wrong could I be? £29.99, 10ft, casting 10-35grms. My mate and I were off to do some sea fishing so the rod was tested, spinning and plugging for bass. Casting was good and should be Ok for the Annan. We didn't connect with any bass so the verdict on its fish handling abilities is still out. I will take backup rods just in case

[donnieW]

Broke the FOURTH Wychwood rod after 30 minutes use. Time for a change! Has anyone tried the Cortland spinning rods? It wasn't a brand I'd thought of but there's one available locally and I've suddenly gone off mail-order.

[speycaster]

ive just bought a ron thompson 10 ft spinning rod ,4 piece 35 pounds does the job for me 20 /50 grms

[alan1]

I did promised in the ‘Which Line’ thread that I initiated in early June that I would put in a report about our trip to the Annan in September, so here it is. I’ve put it here as this was the last thread I posted on but if the Moderators or Admin feel it should be moved to another part of the site please feel free to do so.

We stayed with Roger and Helen Pascoe. Roger is an expert on salmon fishing and Helen is an expert cook. I can only say the food was out of this world and our only regret was that we were always too full to manage one of her puddings. The next day, after a full breakfast (and I mean a full one!) we set off for the river armed with ‘flying Cs’ and Roger’s advice. The river was high and running clayie-brown so it was going to be a tough day Only one salmon caught on the beat today by the other guest at the B&B.

Tuesday saw the river in ideal condition and I caught my first salmon ever and then followed it up in the afternoon with two more in quick succession. My word, they know how to scrap, glad to get them in the net! Wednesday was our last day on Newbie beat and I caught a small sea trout (again, my first ever) and like all the others caught that week it was returned. A lot of fish were caught on Newbie on those two days and my mate got in on the act with two of his own.

Thursday saw us further up the river on Shilla Hill for the next three days. Not so much character here, wild, windswept and barren. By chance we met a local angler who gave us some special home made weights and told us how to fish the worm.

We returned the next day and I was fortunate enough to catch a 71/2 fish on the worm. It was very deeply hooked (well I couldn’t see the hook) so I decided to kill it. I’m not prepared to let any fish die a long and painful death but did I do right? I suppose I will never know! The recommended method of fishing the worm is very similar to the way we fish for bass with crab baits. However, I did not feel any bites before my line took off for the middle of the river and the fight was on. I can only think that as the bait was in an eddy there was sufficient slack line (unbeknown to me) for the fish to take the bait without it registering at my finger tips. Either that or it took it and swallowed it in one go! Nothing further that day and the same on Saturday.

So all in all a great time and a few fish as well, so no moans here. The Berkley rod was superb and coped easily with the fish caught which isn’t bad for an outlay of just £30. I used both 15lb mono (Maxima ultra green) and 30lb Power Pro braid. The Ultra Green often developed loops on the spool (even when quite well down on the spool and despite loading it correctly)and on two occasions when stripping line off to get to them I found that the line was in two parts! If I had hooked into a fish that went on a long run I would have been faced with watching the line disappear out of the rings and a poor fish trailing 40yards of line around with it (doesn’t bare thinking about.) I must say it has shaken my belief in Maxima but if any of you can point to an error on my part I would be most grateful as I have another reel (a multiplier) loaded with the same line. I did have the odd tangle with the braid but I put this down to having too much on the reel because when I stripped and removed some, the braid behaved itself.

Finally, I must say a big thank you to all the Scottish anglers who we met (particularly the chap at Shilla Hill) and Roger at SSB. They all gave freely of their advice to us absolute beginners and without that advice I doubt if we would have caught any salmon. Next up is to learn how to fish for them with the fly!