SO PRETTY! OH SO PRETTY!

 
There comes a time when every restoration should be put to the test and today it was the turn of a Poolson (Poole and son) Lightning Strike. I really, really do like whole cane/split cane float rods. Somehow I'd always assumed they wouldn't be very nice to use and that later innovations such as hollow split cane rods would be far superior.

My first restoration of such a rod was an R Sealey Matchwinner and I was smitten by it straight away. It was pretty alright, the whole cane, painted gloss black, showing off the black and white jasper threads along with the scarlet highlights to absolute perfection. Not only was it good to look at, it was pleasant in the hand as well. I use it often with either a flick'em centrepin or my favourite Ambidex Match. It really is a joy to use for light floatfishing, a proper Roach rod to my mind.

My second was an Edgar Sealey Floatcaster, unpainted but stunning with its British Racing Green whippings. Visually it has a more eccentric appearance than the Matchwinner because the whole cane mid-section looks for all the world like it is built on a garden centre reject! The nodes and associated grooves are so pronounced that I was initially fearful of it breaking on a good fish but I was worrying unnecessarily as it recently wangled a 12 lbs Carp out of a tight swim for me. In fact, I love it for its imperfections.

I have never yet owned a Robert or Edgar Sealey rod that wasn't any good, but the Lightning strike was made by A Poole and sons (Poolson) of Redditch, a maker that I have little experience of. What attracted me to it was the potential for another stunning float rod with its colourful whippings and black paint. Only time would tell if it was as good as a Sealey. You have to have a degree of vision to anticipate how much more spectacular these kind of rods look when they are freshly whipped and varnished. With 60 to 80 years under their belts, they are invariably dull with frayed and bodged whippings and rusty rings but stripping and cleaning them reveals their true potential. The varnish will have gone brown, hiding the true colours , handles have either gone black or worse still, been varnished and frequently the 'rust' on the rings is just old varnish that will scrape off. Cut the whippings off and the reverse will show black and yellow is really black and white while the colours sparkle.

This rod took me four to five weeks to restore and today it would show both its worth and its faults. I started fishing at about 7.30 but by 10 o clock I had missed just three bites. Worms were the bait of choice as indeed they have been for a while now. I let the first two run, but missed both, the third flashed under and my reflex strike was equally unsuccessful. It was not looking good. Eventually, however, as I turned the handle to twitch the bait, a fish took hold and after a tidy scrap I netted a stunning Crucian of 1-8. My next cast produced a Roach of 14 ounces, the third consecutive bite saw me land a 2-8 Bream and the fourth a 4-9 Tench!

 
In four casts my morning had gone from bad to splendid but it couldn't and didn't last. My next fish was a while coming but when it did it was a stern test for the Lightning Strike, a 2-10 male Tench hooked in the tail which fought like a maniac, boring relentlessly toward the tree roots next to my swim. The rod coped admirably and I could quickly see that yet again, rod makers of this era were on top of their game. Somehow they manage to get a smooth action throughout the top two via a split cane tip, a metal ferrule and two different diameters of whole cane spliced together. Sadly the rest of the morning relaxed back to its former state of very little happening and I added just two more fish, an 8 ounce Roach and a small Perch.

So the rod had a good test today and passed in every respect bar being a bit tip-heavy and thus not terribly well balanced. To be fair this I put down to the extra length as 12 feet seems optimal to me, especially for trotting with vintage rods, even fibreglass ones. Those are far better balanced and a lot more comfortable to use. This rod is fine fished out of the rests and will be a great addition for fishing deeper water with a fixed float. I fish a couple of venues which when full are just too awkward to fish this way with a 12 foot rod. All in all one to go on the users pile rather than the collector's.