Fire up the Quattra!
Looking back at an era of fine fishing and huge casts, we remember some classic ‘motors’ and the men who used them
A look back at some classic rods and top casters.
My first beach rod was the bottom two sections of an ancient Greenheart river rod with a DIY brass tip ring whipped on top. It got me fishing until my pocket money stretched to a tatty Modern Arms Sea King beach-caster built of cane, reinforced by a steel rod up the middle. It soon split, throwing off wicked splinters of bamboo. It ended its days standing in my dad’s garden, smothered in runner beans.
In the frustrating quest for a rod capable of really belting a 6oz lead weight, I resorted to a carpet cane; back then, carpet came wrapped around a length of sturdy bamboo. My cane
was about 11ft long, half-an-inch thick at the tip and three times fatter at the butt.
Using my granddad’s magic candle trick, I straightened and tempered the pole before taping on a handful of welding wire rod rings. It was ugly and top-heavy, but hurled a cod bait out of sight if the gods were smiling. Mostly, it kicked like a mule and vaporised precious bait. We won’t talk about the snap-offs.
I couldn’t work out why it was not only spiteful, but such hard work, especially at modest range. Where the Sea King fished effortlessly, the same distance with the cane devoured twice the effort. This disparity between rods bothered me even more when better gear came along, including prototype Hardy tournament blanks, as well as the company’s lovely 6-9oz Tourney beachcaster. The muscle-bound rods were fine on a field, but the fishing rods equalled them on the beach, if not beat them.
WONDERFUL LEGACY
Around this era, the 1970s, a trend toward light, sporting fishing ran in parallel with the enormous interest in casting. The Ian Gillespie Cod Pole was an outstanding example of how decent casting performance could combine with premium fishing qualities in a rod that weighed mere ounces.
Nothing felt as good as a Cod Pole with a lively fish on the end. In a sport so besotted by pure distance, the lack of top-end performance was its downfall. Even so, I could easily fish at over 120yd. I still regret selling it.
The Cod Pole left a wonderful legacy: the Breakaway lead. Lighter rods lacked the cranking power to dislodge a traditional grip lead from the seabed. Ian suggested using a lead with no resistance on the way back ashore. Step forward Nigel Forrest, the tackle genius behind the swivel-wire system who, with Ian and Norman Bickers, founded The Breakaway Tackle Development Company.
An excellent caster and angler, Nigel was one of the few tournament champions exclusively to use an off-the-shelf fishing rod, the Abu 464. By far the most influential power rods of their day, the 464 and the 484 (same blank, different handle furniture) underlined how it is perfectly possible to mix world-class distances with great fishing performance.
I saw Nigel hit 250yd on many occasions using 0.40mm line and a 6oz lead. Only a handful of today’s big casters can put bait further out than he could.
The crucial factor for me was that the Abu 464 was not only effortless, but a rod that anyone could use given a bit of practice. So again, the question arose that had been nagging at me since bamboo days: why are some rods easy and others sheer agony? How did a mere 11ft 6in rod like the 464 combine classy fishing with stratospheric casting?
ARCHERY
I found the answers when I took up archery. The limbs (bendy bits) on a bow are designed to be drawn into a specific curve. An archer’s priority is to discover how hard he can pull, and how far. On average, a man draws about 28in and pulls about 40lb. Length and weight
established, you buy a bow designed to reach its full curve at your personal settings. Your bow will be accurate and pleasant to use, and it will shoot an arrow a long, long way.
Now, suppose you chose an English war bow instead. Your 40lb would flex the limbs only an inch or two. Let go, and the arrow would flirt all over the place and land a few yards away. It takes a pull of 150lb or more to bring a war bow to full draw, in other words, into its proper curve. At that stage the arrow will punch a hole through a knight’s armour at 12 score paces (240yd), the legal minimum practice distance in Henry VIII’s day. The challenge is to generate the 150lb pull.
That’s where I was going wrong with rods. Whatever the ‘draw weight’ of an ultrapowerful rod, or even a carpet cane happens to be, quite clearly, I wasn’t up to it. The rod didn’t reach its full curve, and was therefore hugely inefficient and inferior to a softer fishing rod at everyday fishing distances.
I did much better on a field, where even the old bamboo touched 200yd. But there is a limit to how hard you can whack a rod on the beach, especially if you aim to keep baits on the hook. And if you don’t need the extra yardage anyway, why suffer?
MAINSTREAM ALTERNATIVE
Rod curvature, casting style and power flow are inextricably linked, and all three must match. The original pendulum style – not invented by, but lifted to new heights by Nigel Forrest – draws heavily on body rotation, as does the South African ground cast, which was then the mainstream alternative. Like Nigel and most of our contemporaries, I built my style on a solid foundation of body power. That is one reason why casters of my generation seem slow and relaxed, but still get good distance.
The aim is to bend the rod to its working curve fairly early in the power arc, most of the input coming from legs and torso turning powerfully in discus-throwing style. Roughly halfway along the power arc, the rod stiffens into a firm lever, allowing the arms to accelerate the sinker even more. Finally, comes the payoff, which is lost when a rod doesn’t work properly: the deeply-bent rod flicks straight to release its stored energy in a catapult action. I have a photo of Nigel in full flow showing the Abu 464 a split second before it unleashes a surge of creamy power. Notice that his arms have almost finished their work.
The Abu 464 inspired many of the best beach rods of the 1970s onward. The Cono-flex Cod series, semi-carbon 240T, Centuries, and the late Terry Carroll’s Zziplexes, including the unsurpassed 2500 (personal opinion, of course) and UK-made Daiwas, with which Paul Kerry set new distance records; all share some of its design DNA. The SurfStik rods I developed for Fenwick followed a similar route, with a few amendments to suit US fishing preferences.
Similar concepts held good when longer rods came into fashion at the end of the 1980s. The common factor regardless of length and sinker weight was a dynamic mid-section, bending nicely to store and release a caster’s energy. Even the mighty Neil Mackellow used tournament rods with plenty of life in the middle. From the average angler’s point of view, these super-rods were still usable. Not ideal, but nothing like as impossibly stiff as some of today’s rods.
The lesson I drew from all this is that the casting method to choose for beach and field, and the ideal tackle to go with that, is shaped and limited by physical build and strength. Since discovering the hard way that body power and a rod that really bends was my personal key to success, I’ve always stuck with that formula, even if it means using a 30-yearold rod instead of the latest technology.
As Clint Eastwood said: “A man’s gotta know his limitations”. Time to fire up my beloved Zziplex Quattra and head for the beach.
“The rod didn’t reach its full curve, and was therefore hugely inefficient ”