Free Spirit S Range Big River Barbel
The ‘S’ Range specialist and Barbel rods have been around for some time now and still remain very popular. Made from the 36t low resin Japanese carbon that has served so well for the actions needed for species like Tench, Bream, Chub and Barbel and fitted with full cork handles, stainless steel fittings, Clone reel seat with isotope slot and ‘S’-Lite guides.
They all feature a ‘Perdurable’ finish meaning the blanks are finished and precision ground so you can admire the quality of material for years to come.
The Barbel Seekers need little introduction although we’ll leave this to Steve Pope – former President of the Barbel Society and user of this rod for many years to do this
“If you’ve ever wondered just what the perfect Barbel rod would look like, then wonder no more because Free Spirit’s Barbel Seeker comes as close as you are ever likely to get. A very bold statement I hear you say but this rod pretty well has it all.”
Available in 11’ and 12’ with a test curve around the 1¾lb these are the all-rounders of our ‘S’ range Barbel range. The 11’ is designed to fish the smaller rivers where accurate casting is needed and also copes well with snaggy swims and where overhead obstacles make the use of a longer rod more tricky. The 12’ will cope with most situations encountered with modern Barbel fishing except where strong flows require a bit more backbone. As Steve put it “this rod is aesthetically pleasing and an absolute joy to use. Its lightness belies the hidden power that will land you that double figure Barbel and its sensitivity will make playing a five pounder equally enthralling.”
The Big River Barbel was again developed with the help and advice from Steve Pope. Following the success of the Barbel Seekers he felt we needed an additional rod with more power in the butt to middle to cope with the flows when rivers like the Trent, Wye and Severn are in spate conditions, at around 2.25lb TC it will cope with pretty much anything you need it to.
Steve brought me two rods that purported to be big river Barbel rods but were in fact 2¼lb carp rod blanks made up as so called Barbel rods. One in fact had the carp logo under a whipping! These actions are not right for the job since a light action carp rod is very progressive and has a shallow taper with not very responsive tip and soft butt to mid- section. They fold up when faced with powerful Barbel in big flows.
We set about designing from scratch the blank and have produced a rod with bags of power in the butt and lower middle sections for stopping express Barbel in full flight and with a sensitive tip to allow registration of the faintest of bites.
