Bring the Fury.
At Akios we really do relish the opportunity to challenge ourselves and this was no exception. The specifications for A mid-priced three-piece rod that offers maximum performance for minimum price seemed maybe a bridge too far, but after hours of mulling over blends of carbon and throwing and tweaking we finally signed off on a very exciting rod on paper at least.
Some weeks later I received a rod tube in the post inside was a lovely looking little rod with black whipping and green tips and a green butt section, my initial impression was that we had something very special on our hands! But the proof would obviously be in how it performed.
The next day I headed out to have a play and decided to fish my new toy side by side with my Akios Endurance as it has an exceptional hybrid tip and being of equal length and diameter it would be the best rod to make any compressions by and if more tweaking would be required further down the line.
The target was flatfish on this occasion and bunches of ragworm the chosen bait. This would require a rod kind enough to deliver a bait intact but powerful enough to punch three large flappy worm baits and 5 ounces of lead a good distance without them exploding all over the place, for anyone who has an Endurance will know this is what this rod is best at and its pretty dam awesome at it.
First casts were sent out and retrieved immediately after impact as a test to see how much bait had been lost during the cast, impressively the baits on each rod were perfectly intact and wriggling away so I decided to put them straight back out and see if I could find a fish or two. Poole harbour flounder fishing is boring at best but can produce some fantastic fish but unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those nights with the odd little micro Bass rattle doing very little to show of the rods bite detection at it’s best but still registering with ease on my new prototypes tip.
Next trip out I hit the open beach in search of my normal target the humble Ray. Conditions were not perfect with a stiff westerly side wide requiring six ounces of lead to carry out my double sandeel and squid wraps out to sea. I fished for a couple of hours with very little doing when the first Small eye of the night made his arrival announced with a firm and continued to pull down of the tip.
The fury felt composed and the power through the midsection made short work of the fishes attempts at escape and she came to shore with ease.
This was followed by a further two more fish in quick succession which was a result considering the conditions.
After filling my initial reports with HQ I was told to do my best to destroy this little rod which is a challenge I’m always glad to be given so over the last year I’ve tried my hardest to no avail to make a mess of this little rod that just keeps on surprising me.