sam vimes
Well-known member
There's little doubt that lighter and thinner is likely to mean more delicate. However, my Acolytes have been used for hundreds of hours each. As yet, I've failed miserably to break one. Tigger tends to catch more, and bigger, fish than I do. As far as I'm aware, he's also failed to break his, though he does tend to favour the heavier Plus versions.
I have a pet theory about Acolyte breakages being predominantly down to wrap arounds. Acolytes do seem to suffer inordinately in this respect, possibly due to a combination of action and rings/ring spacing. This has often been noted with similarly fast actioned rods, especially old spliced tip rods of years gone by (just look at the number of old spliced tip Drennan, Daiwa and Tri-Cast rods offered for sale with an inch or two missing!). I suspect that my predilection for using Acolytes only for trotting, invariably with centrepins, means that I notice wrap arounds before any damage can be done.
I didn't buy Acolytes from their earliest release because I was wary. Similarly, I've avoided the much vaunted Normark 2000s due to the sheer number of them with shortened tip sections. I ended up asking a few different tackle dealers what the returns had been like. I was told that non-user error returns were negligible. I also noticed that some of the most vociferous naysayers had actually used the rods on many occasions before they suffered a breakage. To my mind, a flawed rod breaks after one or two outings, not five, or more. Much as it won't make me popular saying it, I'm afraid that at least some of those that suffered breakages jumped on a bandwagon to get free replacement sections. Forum gossip seems to go a fair bit further than reality with regards to Acolyte breakages, though they probably aren't the wisest choice for the Binkas of this world!
I have a pet theory about Acolyte breakages being predominantly down to wrap arounds. Acolytes do seem to suffer inordinately in this respect, possibly due to a combination of action and rings/ring spacing. This has often been noted with similarly fast actioned rods, especially old spliced tip rods of years gone by (just look at the number of old spliced tip Drennan, Daiwa and Tri-Cast rods offered for sale with an inch or two missing!). I suspect that my predilection for using Acolytes only for trotting, invariably with centrepins, means that I notice wrap arounds before any damage can be done.
I didn't buy Acolytes from their earliest release because I was wary. Similarly, I've avoided the much vaunted Normark 2000s due to the sheer number of them with shortened tip sections. I ended up asking a few different tackle dealers what the returns had been like. I was told that non-user error returns were negligible. I also noticed that some of the most vociferous naysayers had actually used the rods on many occasions before they suffered a breakage. To my mind, a flawed rod breaks after one or two outings, not five, or more. Much as it won't make me popular saying it, I'm afraid that at least some of those that suffered breakages jumped on a bandwagon to get free replacement sections. Forum gossip seems to go a fair bit further than reality with regards to Acolyte breakages, though they probably aren't the wisest choice for the Binkas of this world!