Avanti & Dragon Match/Carp gear. Good or crap?

[northern eye]

Hi everyone. Has anyone ever bought any Avanti or Dragon gear, you know, the stuff that gets advertised in Angling Times all the time. It seems odd that they say the rods are RRP £90 then they are selling them for 10 quid and the poles are meant to be £200 and they going for £70. Is this gear just all rubbish? Are the tackle testers in Angling Times telling porkies when they say it is just as good as more expensive brands?

I am interested to know as I have just broke my float rod (the cheap Leeda one, thank god) and with the wife having just had our first baby (little lad, he'll be on the bank with me soon:))- monies tight!!

If these rods/reels are any good then I might as well buy one as a budget replacement. Anyone out there used any of this stuff or do you own a rod, reel or pole by Avanti??? Let me know what the score is with this gear please. Cheers all.

[Complete Tangler]

I've heard a few bad reports about the Reels, especially the Baitrunner one's, but I brought one of the £25 Guest Chairs and cannot fault it, cannot comment on the Rods and Poles.

[red110kev]

There are plenty of threads about on various forums about Dragon Carp/Used Tackle gear. Some good but mostly not so good.

I live only a couple of miles from the Nottingham shop and I've had some gear off them when I started back up (again) a few years ago so can comment on some of the stuff I've used.

Carp rods:
I've had the budget ones (£10 and £12.50) and they're fine as a starter rod. They're made of "Vitreous fibre" which I suspect is fibreglass in old money and are a bit heavy (compared to Carbon) but the finish, rings etc aren't too bad and whilst I've not caught anything to give them a good pounding, they seem up to the job. I had a couple of 3lb TC pike rods from Dragon & they coped OK with lobbing decent sized deadbaits out.

Barbel rods:
I had a couple of the Barbel Twin Tip rods (which the son & wife now have) and again, vitreous fibre. They aren't as heavy as the Carp rods but have handled Barbel to around 8lb in fast currents very well. OK for fishing from rod rests or holding only for a short while.

Float rods:
Again, (£10 ones) vitreous fibre and will make your arm ache if holding all day. Gave mine to the wife as a back-up rod for short sessions.

CK Fusion Carp rods:
I have a mate whose got one and a little more expensive than the budget ones. Good finish & OK to use. However, the "cork" handle is not proper cork rings, it's only a thin laminate which has started coming off my mate's rod after a couple of year's use.

Reels:
I've had a few to start up again. The ones around £10 and below... avoid like the plague. They're plastic and not very robust. I had one or two which are only kept as backup reels now. I had a pair of Zero 360 baitrunners (which look like they've been re-branded to the Firerunner Excel). These are quite good reels for the price.
The Marco Cortesi Centrepin - mate's GF has one. Decent reel. Good reviews. Exact same one as the Iconix at less than half the price.

Bits-and-bobs:
Had a few sundries from them. A few are OK. Some (like feeders) were cheap & nasty). Get these from a local tackle shop then you can buy the quality you want.

All-in-all, the rods are all pretty decent but the vitreous fibre ones are a lot heavier than the carbon ones so you may need to take this into account if you will be holding the rod all day.
The reels are OK ecxept for the real cheap ones and whilst I've had no problems yet with my cheapies I'm not confident that the internal workings might give up at some point if I were to get a really big 'un on.

RRP £90 but yours for only £10? This is the usual case of trying to con the buyer into thinking they're getting a real bargain. I think you can ignore any RRP on tackle except for the very well known branded gear.

Hope this helps.

[muddy_boots]

I've got an Avanti barbel rod and a few bits and pieces. No complaints about it at all, although I would not trust a £10 reel no matter what the rrp is supposed to be.

[Complete Tangler]

Originally Posted by muddy_boots

although I would not trust a £10 reel no matter what the rrp is supposed to be.

Amen to that.

[northern eye]

Cheers for the info guys...was tempted by that marco cortesi centrepin when I saw it but not being able to hold it or test it as you would in a tackle, decided to leave it. I might just give one of the avanti float rods a go, spose if its crap I am not wasting much cash. I thought the RRP thing is too dubious to believe - you wouldn't see daiwa releasing a rod for £100 and then deciding to sell it in a magazine for a tenner would ya!! What gets me is that the guys who do the reviews in Anglers Mail say things like 'these rods/poles/reels etc are up there with the top brands' - how do they sleep at night??

[red110kev]

Trouble is mate anything that goes in a fishing mag/paper will always get a positive review because they won't want to lose the advertising revenue.

Would you re-advertise in a mag that rubbished your stuff?

The best place for honest opinions are fishing forums (and there's plenty of them) so you get a blow by blow account of tackle by the people who use it. The majority have no financial interest in any brand so they can tell it how it is.

[northern eye]

Yeh you are right there redkev, they must get a bloody fortune from Dragon cos half the paper is filled with ads for there tackle or there roadshows etc - cheers for the info bud, given me a good idea whats what. Av always bought branded gear, from the local tackle shop whenever finances allow but interesting to know what this stuff is really like in comparison.

[Complete Tangler]

Originally Posted by muddy_boots

although I would not trust a £10 reel no matter what the rrp is supposed to be.

Slightly off topic, but, well, what do you know, a mate of mine has just been begging me to borrow one of Shimano GT's for a trip he has planned for tomorrow, he brought a Baitrunner type reel from LIDL, which I suspect is something called a Crivit Freespool (same as a Waterline, which you can get from Mularkeys), he said he tried it in the shop and it seemed ok, nice and smooth, but when he came to loading the line, he found that the Baitrunner system has a mind of it own!! sometimes the spool just rotates even with both the Baitrunner disengaged and the Drag on maximum!!

[barbelblanker]

If the reel does not perform like it says it will then just take it back. If it says it's a baitrunner type then it should act that way. If it's just a dirt cheap reel with a lever on the back then, if it doesn't claim to be one but looks like one then you are going down the road of "a reasonable person would think it was based on...". Whatever the case is , if it is not fit for purpose or of acceptable quality (it's a fishing reel should be able to fish with it), then take it back.

Reels are one of those items that I think you very much get what you pay for. I was after a couple of cheap reels quite a few years ago and bought two from a large reel company. They were rubbish and barely lasted the first season before major issues.

I have since become a big fan of Okuma based on the fact that every reel I've bought with that name on the side has continued to work . OK so I had to completely dismantle one when I dropped it in to the Severn and it filled with gear grinding paste (or severn sand/mud) but once I got it back together it was fine. The good thing about makes like Okuma is you can spend a lot or a relative little and it's usually the function/whistles and bells that dimishes not the quality.

I do think that companies like dragon carp have a place in angling but just don't expect to get the lifespan out of a really cheap reel. It should be reasonably expected to last at least 6 months though so might be OK just to get back in to things. I also think the cheaper reels are a lot less robust so , not that I want to make a habit it of it, dropping them could be terminal.

The point has been well made that the angling press are unlikely to criticise one of their larger customers. I am almost tempted to buy one of their bigger poles to see if it's rubbish or just a bit of tackle snobbery. Almost.