First Pole

[anglerpaul]

As heading say's looking to buy my first allrounder got £200 to spend any tips before i go out and buy all help welcome.

[dace]

Well Anglerpaul i got a new 13m pole Stand and Deliver, good all round pole.retails at over £200.00 but i got it from www.dragoncarpdirect.comi payed £99.99 and i received with it £20.00 of pole accessorys and a free bag worth £30.00. with the money i saved i got 2 more top 3s and one more powertop 2. Great pole on a lake or canal and still change out of £200.00 let me know what you buy.

[aland]

i had a Shimano Technium 1250 12.5 metres long with 3 tops in the 3 where 2 power tops cost £ from £199 .00 fishermans friend . although cost me extra £40.0 to have the 3 tops set up .You can get an extension that takes it 14 metres.

[Stu]

anglerpaul,
Seeing as your budget is £200 don't go for length, go for quality. Also consider the number of top kits you get, or the change you have to buy extra top kits.

£200 will limit you to the budget makes, margin poles or the bottom of the range from the bigger manufacturers. Without knowing where you will be fishing it is hard to recommend any model/type, but here is some general advice.

There is a wide choice of margin poles around with some good ones around £100 to £120, e.g. Garbolino Margin Manager, Daiwa Yank n Bank, Shimano Beast Master. However, margin poles are only up to about 8.5m and are heavy at that length. You certainly wouldn't want to use them at length all day. Unless a margin pole really suits your fishing, I would suggest you look for an all-round pole from either the budget makers (in that I am including Leeda, Shakespeare, Middy etc) or from the bottom end of the range from the big boys (Shimano, Maver, Daiwa etc).

In that range I would start off looking at either the Daiwa Meanstreak 12.5M (around £125) or the Shimano Technium XTA 13M (around £199). Both have a 20 elastic rating and come with a spare power top2. Also, Daiwa and Shimano probably have the best after sales service, so if you break a section in two or three years time you will still be able to get a replacement section. I have heard good things about the Shimano but the Daiwa pole offers you £75 change to go towards another top kit and a cupping kit.

Stu

[Stu]

I understand that Fosters of Bham are doing the Daiwa Meanstreak for £95!

[steveinmk]

I just bought a Middy bagginmachine, £130 includes 2 spare tops adn a cupping kit as well as elasics, bungs etc. very pleased with it, not top of the range but will deal with anything I am likely to catch