PART 2

Venues
I selected two venues for our test, both were mixed fisheries with ample stocks of varying size fish, that would be essential for elastic comparisons. One was a small farm reservoir, which stored water for its many raspberry and strawberry plants. Originally stocked in the 90’s with small carp and roach the fish have managed to thrive in the deep depths and today it’s packed with carp to double figures and heaving with hordes of quality roach.


Above: The reservoir was heaving with roach of all sizes.

Below: The purpose built fishery had tench to 9lb.

The other venue had some notably hard fighting tench, with fish well over 6lb being commonplace. On both venues I virtually got a bite a chuck from the moment I started fishing to when I stopped. I caught fish of all sizes, small roach, quality roach and rudd, including some cracking fish over a pound, along with a few big tench and carp. The exciting thing about these venues is you never knew what fish would come along next. It could be a 2oz roach or a 6lb tench or carp! There were certainly enough fish to pull the elastics out and give a good comparison of my three test samples. Each venue had different depth characteristics, with the relatively shallow tench lake being around 4-5 foot and the deep carp and roach reservoir dropping down to nearly 25 foot at its centre. I fished with fairly short lines on each of the three set-ups, the longest being the caster rig which had around two foot.

Test procedures
I followed a fairly simple procedure with my three top kits, one had black Hydro, one blue Preston hollow and the third a solid Vespe No.14. Each was fitted with the correct connector and tensioner, depending on whether it was for the solid or hollow variety. All three kits had been cut back to the same length and fitted with identical Drennan carp bushes. I only used two rigs on each venue.

On the reservoir I had a deep and shallow rig for the tench lake for caster and pellet. The two specific rigs were used in turn on each of the three top kits. Obviously what I was testing was the elastics, not the rigs, so I had to consciously make the effort to change the rig over to another top kit once I started catching fish. This was harder to do than what it first seemed. You know what its like, once you start catching all you want to do is keep on catching, but in the interests of investigative journalism (unfortunately for me), I had to keep monitoring the elastics performance rather than bagging-up! Each elastic received a thorough workout with each rig in turn. For example, on the tench lake I caught my first big tench on black Hydro then immediately switched it to the Vespe top kit and caught another. I then had to finally swap again, onto the Preston elastic, and wait a further twenty minutes until I got another large tench.

How the elastics performed
1. Small fish
There were some startling differences in elastic performance with smaller fish. First, the Preston proved the most reluctant to come out, in fact, with very small fish of around 1oz, it was hard to get any flow of elastic out of the tip at all. On the solid Vespe things were slightly better, but not much because the elastic came out on all fish but there was a bit of bounce back off the pole tip. However, the star performer by a long way was black Hydro. Now given that all these elastics were rated to 14-15, or a 1.8mm equivalent, it might seem unreasonable to expect much subtlety with fish smaller than an ounce but against these odds the Hydro proved impressive. It seemed to have an amazing dual quality, it was incredibly strong, yet surprisingly soft and supple. Even on small fish the Hydro would come out slightly on the strike, taking the connector away from the bush. Even so, the trick with these smaller fish was to ship the pole back quite quickly in order to keep the elastic under constant tension. This proved a major difference between the Hydro and the other two as it came out of the pole tip as soon as you struck into a fish, whereas the Preston and Vespe might come out as you shipped the fish back through the water fast… or they might not!

Conclusion
The Hydro proved to be by far the softest and most forgiving elastic on smaller fish. It consistently came out, even with very small fish and you had that feeling of security with everything and anything you hooked. The poorest performer was the Preston. It took a slightly bigger fish to pull it out than the Vespe, however, this is not a criticism of either of them. Let’s face it, when you set up a 1.8mm or No. 14 elastic, handling a one ounce fish is not on your list of priorities… these elastics are made for big fish. The fact that Hydro has this incredible dual action is a plus mark in its favour, rather than a negative mark against the other two. But if you are match fishing on a venue with very mixed sized fish stocks, the Hydro has the definite edge.

Lubricating hollow elastics?
To lubricate or not… that is the question! Well, most hollow elastics DO NOT need to be lubricated to get the best from them, simply pulling the elastic through water should be enough to see them coming out smoothly from your pole tip. Solid elastics, on the other hand, do need some lubrication to make sure that they come out smoothly. There is a feeling in some quarters that lubricants can shorten the life of hollow elastic, but in my experience I found that it did no harm to them, however, more importantly, I found it added no significant improvement to the elastics performance compared to the water lubrication method.

2. Mid-sized fish
These are very important fish, both to match and pleasure anglers alike. Fish in the 8oz to 2lb category are what often makes up the bulk of decent bags of fish, along with the odd ‘lump’ thrown in. In my test I caught mid-sized fish of all species… plenty of quality roach, some cracking rudd, small carp up to a 1lb+ and some small tench, which fought hard and were great fun to catch. On the positive side, all three elastics coped well with this category of fish. I cannot say that any particular elastic bumped or lost more fish than another. They all coped reasonably well, but not necessarily in the same way, however I noticed two related differences between them.
First, in terms of stretch was Hydro, which was easily the most forgiving on mid-sized fish. On the carp reservoir, for example, I started catching a roach every cast of around 10ozs each and the Preston and Vespe coped well, extending out about 30cm every time. When I switched to the Hydro the same sized fish were pulling 60 or 70cm out. One notable difference was that with either the solid or hollow you could comfortably swing these fish to hand. With the black hydro being stretchier you had to either net them or stand up a little to lift them from the water.
The second difference is how they felt. The Hydro again was different in feel to the other two. To be frank the soft Hydro simply did not feel like a No.14 equivalent elastic. With all of these mid-sized fish, the Hydro felt and performed more like an elastic rated 8, you got a comfortable amount of stretch and a real feel for the size of the fish on it. To see whether my finding were just my own assumptions I gave our intrepid photographer on the day, Dave Johnson, a go catching these fish and I switched elastics over for him so he could feel the same as me. Dave was astonished at the difference it made. He too was slower with the Hydro when it came to landing fish than the others. Nor did he catch any more fish using the Hydro. He also felt that the Hydro was much more forgiving on these fish and actually enjoyed catching the fish on it, more than any of the others.

Conclusion
There were no problems from any of the elastics with regard to catching mid-sized fish. Given the slack tension settings on my tops, all three came out easily and were secure and safe at getting the fish into the net. Once again the Hydro proved the most supple of the trio and certainly gave you the impression of fishing with a lighter elastic. However, because the Hydro came out further on these fish, you had to use the landing net more. This is in many ways can be a good thing as you will loose less fish by netting them… lets face it, any roach of 10oz plus SHOULD be netted under normal circumstances. The exception being is when you are really bagging up in a match and under these conditions you would either have to wind up the Hydro tighter, or use the normal solid or hollow elastic which would allow you to swing them straight in!

The cost of these elastics
There is no doubt that some of these hollow elastics can appear very expensive. The black Hydro, for example, is £15+ (25 Euros), with just enough to set up a single top kit. This has possibly put a lot of people off trying Hydro, especially if they have got several kits to do. Hollow elastics are mid-priced, coming in between £7 and £10 with the solid elastics being by far the cheapest, but these are gradually being phased out due to the main producing factory closing down. I have a couple of observations to make about the cost of these elastics. The first is that the Hydro cost seems on the surface to be very exaggerated. If you were to take the cost of manufacturing a hollow elastic and then inserting fluid down it, then the 50-100% increase in the price tag wouldn’t seem right! However, there are two major difference between Hydro and any other elastic in existence! Hydro has high quality control measures in place which discount about 20% of each manufactured batch of latex. All production tasks, like fluid pumping and quality control are heavily labour intensive and add to the extra cost. This leaves you with a product, which has an incredible lifespan, far in excess of anything available in the global market place. In fact our photographer admitted to owning some white Hydro which Micky Hughes gave him in 1999… and it's still in one of his top kits!!!

Hydro remains the only liquid filled elastic on the market, thanks to stringent patents’ and copyright, so the price is likely to stay high for the foreseeable future. Hydro elastics do last for several seasons (unless your tight like Dave) and give you notable advantages in certain situations over all other elastics, whether solid or hollow. We may moan about its cost, but set that against the hundreds and thousands of pounds we happily spend on poles, then perhaps this is more a case of ‘penny wise, pound foolish’! Fifteen quid will barely buy lunch at a restaurant, but it will get you a minimum of three seasons worth of hard-fished elastic. One other final cost-based observation. You get plenty of metres when you buy solid elastic (for the time being) and the hollow elastics managed to do a top kit comfortably. However, the Hydro was a little miserly, coming with barely enough for one decent power kit. It does seem a bit tight that when you’re charging the customer top dollar for a product... you then give them barely enough to do the job, but then given the quality of the product, its extremely difficult to fault it.
After all, you don’t buy a £30,000 car and put remoulds on it… do you?

3. Big fish
Now we come to the crux of the test. How did our big fish elastics perform on big fish? The answer is all three coped well. They were all up to the job of handling the fish I caught and all gave a feeling of control over them. The differences were less in performance, more in feel. I will go through each elastic in turn and discuss their pros and cons.

Solid Vespe
This elastic gave a good account of itself on big fish. It came out smoothly and had the right balance of give and power to cope with the weight of fish I was catching… up to 3 kilos. I did have more of a problem re-tensioning this elastic after each big fish as it would tend to droop out of the end. I suspect this has something to do with the natural stretch that all solids have over the more stable hollow variety. I also lost a big tench on this elastic, which may well have been foul hooked. After I’d struck the fish bolted straight off and I was unable to stop or turn it, until the rig pinged back at me. Now I happen to believe that on the softer hollow’s I might have got that fish in. The reason? I’d previously foul hooked a near 7lb tench on Preston Hollow on another occasion and managed to net it. This, I believe, was down to the softer hollow not bottoming out quite so abruptly as the solid. Apart from that, if a fish was hooked in the mouth, the solid gave a good positive and responsive fight when a fish was hooked. One other item to note was that you could net most of the fish sitting down, as once down to the power kit, the elastic gave solid control over the tiring fish.

Black Hydro
Hydro elastic will surprise you if you are new to it. From what I have written so far you would think that this elastic was under-rated… that it could be a 10 elastic masquerading as a 14. This is not the case, put a big fish on the end of hydro and it copes well.

The feel of the fish is different on a Hydro compared with solid. While you have a less harder contact with the fish, the Hydro proves to be just as quick, if not quicker, at subduing larger fish. I think that the apparent softness coupled with its strength, aggravates a hooked fish less, while still allowing you to gain control. As soon as you strike, you feel the cushioning effect that the Hydro produces against impact. Hooked fish start to slide away, rather than bolt off, so you tend to play them differently. You simply start to slowly ship the pole back, almost as soon as you’ve hooked it and it will generally follow. Keep the pole tip low and let the elastic take the sting out of the fish. When the fish gets close to the bank raise the tip and pump it up and down to tighten up the elastic.As Hydro extends more than the other elastics, when you break down your sections to net a bigger fish, it maybe a good idea to stand up. You will also notice that some fish may often fight harder right under your feet. Simply lift the pole tip to stop the elastic stretching anymore and the fish should come into contact with the full force of the elastic. Finally Hydro is very good at slowly sliding back into your pole tip after each big fish. It may dangle a while, but it’ll soon slink back in… very impressive!

Preston Hollow
I felt that this elastic was the most powerful on our test and could have easily coped with much larger fish. You get some of the softness that I have described with the Hydro but with more power behind it, undoubtedly due to its lack of internal fluid. Big fish were quickly subdued on this elastic, as quickly as the Hydro, but with a greater feeling of more direct power. I suppose you could think of this as a half-way measure between the solid and Hydro. I’d been fairly hard on this elastic up till now and it had coped with the smaller fish even though it did not always come out cleanly. However on the big fish it really showed its true class. It recovered well, sliding back into the pole after each big fish and once again you sometimes had to stand up to net certain fish. Regarding the job it was designed for, a big fish elastic, this product took some beating on both feel and performance!

Conclusion
As I stated, our elastics all performed well on the big fish. This, after all, is what they were designed for. I have summarised the performance of the three elastics below in terms of feel and performance. On balance, I think the two hollow’s felt and performed better than the solid. I would also say that the Preston elastic seemed to have the most in reserve power and if you were on a carp only water, rather than a mixed fishery, it would be my first choice.

Vespe Solid
Feel: Positive and responsive. You get a very direct contact with the fish. Rating 4 out of 5.
Performance: Overall good, but with problems re-tensioning the elastic after big fish and also its bottoming out. Rating 3 out of 5.

Black Hydro
Feel: You get a cushioned sensation with Hydro. It’s very easy to play big fish with this elastic, provided you are not too concerned about where the fish goes. In open water it’s child's play to ship back slowly and let the fish follow suit. You either like the soft feel or you don't, I do so it gets a Rating 5 out of 5.
Performance: Excellent, no problems re-setting and once you get into the habit of using it by standing up to net larger fish, then things will speed up! Otherwise trouble-free and easy to use. Rating 4 out of 5.

Preston Hollow
Feel: This elastic feels strong when you are playing fish. You get a softer feel with the fish than the solid and more direct contact than the Hydro. When you strike into fish the elastic does a good job of cushioning that initial run. You feel there is something left in reserve so should you happen to hook a real lump then it should cope admirably. A good positive feel with the added cushioning on big fish makes this elastic tops. Rating 5 out of 5.
Performance: Hassle free… crawled back into the pole tip after big fish with little help from me. Flowed out of the pole tip very well with good fish on. You did get a fair bit of elastic out of the pole tip on larger fish, but not as much as on Hydro. Possible to net fish sitting down, or standing up. Great performance on big fish, with power still in reserve should an even bigger one come along. Rating 5 out of 5.

The limits of my test
Before I finish I’ve some final thoughts about what I believe I found out about these elastics. I should also mention a couple of things which limit the range of this test. The first is that I conducted the test on fairly shallow commercial fisheries. OK, the reservoir was knocking on for 3 metres deep, which is deep for a commercial fishery but not compared to many European waters. I used commercial fisheries for ease and you are almost guaranteed loads of bites from all sizes of fish, so as a place to put elastics through their paces these proved ideal! HOWEVER, I didn’t have to strike very hard on these waters. A simple lift of the knee and most fish were on. This limits the test I have done. Let me explain. Our editor at Declic, Nicolas, has been buying in Hydro elastic as fast as he could. Excited by the allure of its dual action he has been trying white Hydro (a softer one compared to what we’ve been using), on the Seine and the Marne while lollipop fishing. Both rivers are deep and with a lollipop you have to strike through the float to hook the fish. Well, he’s been pulling his hair out because he simply cannot strike hard enough to get the elastic to comfortably hook the fish. So there could be some reservations about using hollow and Hydro’s where you need a firm and positive strike. Perhaps the elastics could be put through their paces on the river next year? The second limitation I think that needs to be made clear was that both venues I fished were open water venues. There were no real snags in any of the swims I fished and this meant that I didn’t have to apply any real power to the fish once hooked. Again, this would have put a different slant on my approach and findings as I would have had to change how the elastics were set up. I don't believe these limits detract too much from the test I’ve conducted, but it is only fair to say that I have been testing these elastics in fairly shallow open waters and the conclusions I have arrived at are based on this fact. I think we must take a look at elastics on big rivers for big bream some time next year, perhaps using the same three elastics as for this test and seeing just what the differences are! Anyway be aware that this test has been conducted with certain limits.

Final Conclusions
The thing about elastics is that a lot of what I have found in this test is subjective. It’s about how elastics feel when a fish is hooked. I’m use to the softer feel of the Hydro/hollow type elastics and enjoy using them. On mixed fisheries, similar to those used, I think that Hydro especially has some a serious advantage over the other elastics. Its performance on small and medium sized fish is astonishing. Once you get the tension right, set nice and slack, black Hydro will let you tackle small fish with ease and confidence. This is a major plus point on all true mixed fisheries where you can catch anything from a tiny perch to a 5 kilo carp. The Hydro also lets you play reasonable sized fish in a different way. You can hook them and ship back almost immediately and the fish will follow, almost guaranteed! Despite the expense I think Hydro is an incredible product which time will prove to be money well spent. But then, until you've tried it you won’t know!

On pure big fish waters I liked the feel of the Preston hollow elastic over the other two. It was easy to control fish on and felt more than strong enough should something bigger come along. I think a lot of continental anglers are switching to hollow elastics for big fish angling so I could possibly be preaching to the converted here. But for those who are still hesitant, just remember to get the right tensioners, bushes and connectors and give it a go!

And finally... where does this leave the plain old solid elastic? Well, I have always liked Vespe elastics and the one I used in the test did well. It coped with small fish and big fish without too many problems. Sure, a solid elastic if set very slack will droop out of your pole tip after catching a big fish, but this is not the end of the world. We have coped for years without hollow elastics! However, when compared with the other elastics on test, I feel the solid offers nothing extra. You get a basic safe performance from the solid but you don't get the all round fluid action of the Hydro, nor the subtle cushioned power of the hollow. It is all back to feel again. Solid elastics give you straight contact with the fish and a feel of properly tiring a fish out through attrition… OK, but fishing moves on. There is no doubt that modern hollow and Hydros give us anglers more technical possibilities than we ever had before. I hope this test has given you an honest view of what each elastic can do and how it felt. I think that we should embrace these new possibilities and go and experiment. Be prepared for these elastics to feel different but that is the point, why would we load our poles up with thick hollow tubing if it felt the same and performed the same as a solid elastic! I am convinced that once you give hollow and Hydros a proper try, you will see their potential and limitations.