Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Live test: Shakespeare Agility 2 13ft Match
This rod may hark back to the ‘old days’ when a 13-footer was king but it’s fitter, stronger, lighter, better made, a delight to handle and much cheaper than before
SHAKESPEARE AGILITY 2 13ft MATCH RRP: £119.99
NOT so long ago a three-piece 13ft float rod would be standard issue for all match and pleasure anglers. Let me tell you why. Industrial cities such as Sheffield, Leeds, Rotherham and Birmingham gave rise to legions of aficionados (pardon the pun) who worked in the huge nationalised coal and steel industries. These had massive working men’s associations with affiliated angling clubs. Every weekend would see coachloads of anglers arriving on the banks of the Witham, Welland, Trent, Severn and Thames, where floatfishing with 13ft rods ruled the roost. Those were the days! Tackle was functional first and foremost. Wicker creels, rods in canvas bags, Intrepid reels, Au Lion D’Or hooks, a smattering of handmade floats – oh, and an Efgeeco bait box containing a pint of ‘gentles’ in sawdust – was all that was needed, or indeed available. The best float rods of the day were built mainly on fibreglass Golden Jubilee blanks, and appeared under the WB Clarke AllEngland, Milbro Enterprise and Billy Lane Match brands. The first carbon rods weren’t
far away, but when Fothergill and Harvey’s carbon blanks first appeared in 1975 they cost a king’s ransom at £133. Bearing in mind that back then a Mars bar cost sixpence (2.5p) and you get an idea just how expensive this rod was. Thankfully, modern 13ft float rods are vastly cheaper in relative terms, as well as being better built, better-balanced, lighter in the hand and altogether superior products. Enter Shakespeare’s Agility 2 13ft Match three-piece rod, which can be found for £119.99 and is also available in 13ft Lite Match and Power Match versions. All three rods are built using lightweight blanks, with progressive actions that will cast wagglers weighing from 10g-30g, or 10g-40g in the case of the Power Match version. Key features on all rods include full cork handles with EVA lock-down foregrips, quality lined Seaguide double and single legged guides, and a classy jet-black glossy coating. In the hand, it hasn’t got the crispest action I have ever seen, and neither is it the fastest at its tip-end. That would make me less inclined to use it in conjunction with gossamer hooklengths and the tiniest of hooks. However, those are its only negatives and, on the plus side, it certainly handled whatever came its way, as I discovered during the test on Decoy Lakes’ Damson Pool. Tactics and bait for this lake, around 6ft deep and full of small fish, needs nothing more complicated than a standard waggler set-up with a few No.8 shot equally spread down the line, and a pint or so of red maggots. My 4AAA insert peacock waggler was attached to 4lb reel line, with a 0.13mm
hooklength, and a size 16 hook using double maggot as bait, presented a couple of inches overdepth. Casting distance was around six rodlengths, which proved little more than a pub chuck for the 13ft Agility 2. It could easily have handled twice that distance. Twenty minutes into the session, the float’s blaze tip vanished, and an instant strike was met with a fair amount of resistance as the first of a series of feisty pasty-sized commons and mirrors put a decent hoop in the rod. I was very impressed with the rod’s line pick-up speed, something which is of paramount importance when attempting to connect with every bite when fishing at distance, or fishing in deeper water. The rod’s fighting action is best described as on the stern side of progressive, which is exactly what you need from a three-piece float rod if you’re using it for targeting stockie commercial carp and F1s. For me, this rod is brilliantly suited to this type of water when using waggler tactics at range in depths of five feet or more. It should be noted that if I was targeting running water roach and skimmers I would almost certainly choose the 13ft Agility 2 Lite Match version.