Budget Starter Pole for Silvers?

[Mothman]

Just getting back into fishing after a 20yr break and would like to have a go at pole fishing and so thought I would search for a cheap (sub £80) second hand pole to see how I get on with it. I will mainly be fishing for silvers on the Kennet & Avon canal and at my local club lakes, whilst hopefully picking up the occasional bonus tench or bream.

Was thinking of something easy to handle for a pole novice say around 9M-11M and preferably not too heavy. Howevever most of the second hand poles of this length I see advertised seem to be strong margin poles targeted for commercial\carp fishing and I was concerned that it may feel like playing a 5oz roach on a broom handle and that I would be constantly bumping off fish, or are most margin poles OK for silvers if fitted with a match top kit?

I would welcome any suggestions of pole makes\models that would fit the bill that I can search for?

Cheers

 

[Deejay8]

With a pole, lightness and stiffness are the most important factors, followed by strength. But it's the elastic that plays the fish, so as long as you have a correctly tensioned elastic that's light enough for your target species, and it's balanced with the right hooklength, then a margin pole will be fine and a new one is very much in your budget. They're just a lot stronger than a lighter pole. It's not like fishing with a rod and line, where too stiff or powerful a rod can almost pull the head off a small fish, and you get no feeling from the rod.