For a bit of fun I still fish with my old cane Chapman 500 coupled with an Intrepid Elite reel or centrepin. Amazing to play a fish on as the rod will bend right through to the cork under your hands......never had a hookpull with it and have caught carp to over 30lb on the set up. Takes you back a bit and the realisation that in the 'old days' rods were built for playing fish rather than casting huge distances and the reels we used reels were crap !!! The only way to play a decent fish on one of the old Mitchells or Intrepids was to loosen the clutch and use finger pressure....otherwise is was jerk,jerk,jerk !!!!
