The Reactor Factor - 10/03/2009

A rod made from carrots? Can it be any good? The editor manages to get his hands on a big bit of fly fishing innovation… a Reacter 9ft 6in 7-wt fly rod.

This Reacter fly rod from Sharpe's of Aberdeen is made using brand-new, super-duper material, a high-performance bio-nano-composite – trying saying that when you’ve had a few whiskies – called Curran. This material, comprising vegetable fibres – bits of carrot and the like to you and I – coupled with ultra-high-modulus carbon fibre is what makes up this fly rod and the others in the Reacter range. Due to the make-up of the blanks they are at least 15 per cent lighter than the lightest carbon rods currently available. The actual Curran material is five times tougher than carbon too, so the rods are pretty solid.

It’s the weight of the thing that gets you, though. Its lightness is so noticeable when you hold it and I have to say that I love light fly rods; they make your day so much easier to bear and this one certainly fits the bill. Try casting a heavy rod all day; it soon wears you down, and this will eventually lead to sloppy casting, which is not good if you’re targeting finicky trout. reactorrod220-2

The strange thing about this rod – and you’ll notice it straightaway – is the matt finish and the rough feel that it has. This is due to the materials used in the manufacturing and, according to the company website, this means that it has reduced friction. Is this true? Well, I found that the rod performed incredibly well when I fished with it in windy weather; whether this is due to the finish or not I have no idea, but it did feel better than some of my other rods in such circumstances.

The Reacter has a middle-to-tip action, like a lot of rods of this size and weight rating, but the odd thing is that it tends to behave differently with nearly every line density. Stick a floater through the rings and you have a really nice casting tool, which will deliver tight loops and give you very good presentation. Set it up with a sinking line and it tends to become a little bit faster, behaving more like a tip-actioned rod. The heavier the line density, the faster the blank becomes. In all instances the rod recovers very quickly and the sensitivity and smoothness means that it’s a joy to catch fish with; you can feel everything that the fish does, unlike some heavier rods that appear to be made for dragging fish in. There are four rods in the range, each designed with a specific task in mind. The rods with the heavier line ratings all come with a fighting butt as standard.

I’ve only used this particular model but I would imagine that the rest are just as good. It performed extremely well; it didn’t matter what I did with it, the rod coped. From small dry flies and long tapered leaders to shooting heads and sinking lines, everything I needed the rod to do, it did – you can’t ask for more than that!

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