A few weeks ago i was wondering how the Century SRE would behave, both in my hands, and on our waters here in Jersey.
Of course, many people wonder the same thing about different rods, but the cost to try these things out is prohibitive.
Simon Chilcott of Century Rods was kind enough to send me the 5.0 MTR version of the Carbon Metal to play with and review.

I have mixed feelings about long rods, yet can see that for some, in certain situations, they would, or might be useful.
I’ve always felt they are over rated “sinker weight wise”, and if anyone could snap one, it would most likely be because of overload.

The rod arrived in a small tube ??
Ah, 3 piece. Thats a good start, as it fits in the car quite nicely thankyou.

The rod bag is robust, and i have one of these for each Century rod i own. 10/10

I do in fact use the CME BB “Blackbird” for casting, and that rod was intended for extensive use on the coast, but so
far the rod has escaped being shown too much usage in the salt. This SRE isn’t a tournament rod, and this, the casting phase is
only phase 1 of 2. Phase 2 will be actually fishing with the rod in its intended locations.

But, first of all, lets take a look at the rod.
It looks like a Carbon Metal, but longer. Simple, until you look closer. The rod tapers to quite a fine tip, and i’m guessing
that it will detect the smallest of bites from the smallest of fish. On the retrieve, the tip doesn’t collapse into the blank, but instead,
it cushions the retrieve, making it quite a pleasant experience for such a long rod. Remember, its 17 feet long. The action
when compressed is strange though. If you study the photo (2 below), you may notice the 2nd bend in the rod. It might look strange
and it looks like a flat spot, but it certainly doesn’t translate to a flat spot during use.

3 equal sections make this rod easy for transportation. It behaves like a 2 piece when assembled.

The rod does cast well, but i’d be careful using weights over 150g with more tournament based styles. I’m not suggesting
that the rod ever felt overloaded but the photo’s show a very healthy bend in the rod with just a plain 150g.

With a full blown cast the rod looks well compressed on a plain 150g sinker. This felt great though.

During the tests i changes from overhead thump (sort of) to Xcast and OTG. All went well. I also moved the reel around
on the rod and did both high and low reel test casts.
I used the supplied reel seat and although i’m not a lover of reel seats this one worked surprisingly well, although it did feel
fat under the hand. That said, the reel seat never moved unless i moved it, and that included some serious winching at one stage
as i picked up a raft of weed after 1 cast.

The SRE comes supplied with this reel seat. It works well.

I was surprised at how well the rod moved the sinker when OTG. I had fully expected the rod to fail in this test.
OK, its not the best OTG (Off The Ground) rod i’ve ever cast, but it was refreshing when the rod delivered the sinker
to quite a distance with comparative ease.

OTG and the rod bends back into the sinker somwewhat. Then it picks it up and fires it miles.

The rod is long. In fact when i was setting the rod up and looking for somewhere to place the rod whilst i assembled
the camera, i had to place the rod alongside a boat trailer on the slipway where i was parked. That trailer was designed
to take a 19 foot boat. The SRE alongside this really showed its length.

17 feet or 5 meters long. The SRE feels much less in use, but has the line control of the long rod.

The build quality is like on all Century rods i’ve handled. The build is the same as that of the blackbird and equally as
impressive. The epoxy is protective without being gaudy, and the overall weight with a reel on board is balanced over its length.
The section to section fit was tight but good. The butt to middle section left 1/2 an inch, whilst the tip to middle left slightly more.
I was concerned with this at first, but i measured the depth of insertion with my thumb and the jointing was more that safe and secure.

The rod is rated to 175g. I would suggest that your average cast with sinker and small bait would be fine if cast with your standard
techniques. If i was using this rod, i’d optimise the rod for use with 125g and 150g sinkers. It performed really well with 150g and
came alive with 125g.

The front and back of the labelling. It seems to do what is printed on there.

All in all, i really enjoyed the session with the SRE. It felt great without feeling overpowering or too long.
It certainly felt far better than any other 5mtr rod i’ve cast to date, and i look forward to sharing phase 2 with you at a later date.

Thats all for now.
Thanks to Century for the use of the rod.

There is a video of these tests available from
http://www.myfishcasting.org/video/SRE_Phase1.wmv

Its a windows media file at approx 71MB.

Century took the plunge knowing full well i might not have liked the rod, and if i hadn’t have liked it, i would have said.
However, my personal dislike wouldn’t have meant it was a bad rod, and i would have duly asked someone more akin with the basic design strategy to test it.
I did like it in fact, and i used it with the multiplier because, well, thats how i fish. The rod is designed to be multi role, and i knew i’d test it to it limits far more effectively with the multiplier.

Asked whether he could compare this rod to the Carbon Metal BlackBird…..

I’d have to say, that i really like the Blackbird. Its useful on the field too.
But from a fishing perspective its a tough choice. If i wanted a purely multi role rod from the beaches and i was targetting small fish upto a 1lb at varied ranges, and i wanted to beat fast tide and get over weed thats collected close into shore, then the SRE would win hands down. It surely will protect delicate worm baits and is really well balanced over the 17 feet.
The blackbird on the other hand probably wouldn’t protect delicate baits to the same level, but..
This would most certainly be the rod for multiplier work at ranges upto 180 yards (obviously dependant on bait type and conditions, including caster ability), but it has more guts available. This would make it suitable for light mixed ground work. In fact it does work well with a 150g and a sizeable bound medium sized crab bait at range. It holds in the tide well but..
The SRE would hold against smaller sinkers more effectively as i’d feel more comfortable using lighter diameters with this rod.

Hooking methods would have to be “wind down” on the SRE and both “wind down” and “striking” work on the BB.
The SRE has a big tendency to bend into whatever resistance is there, and it bends in a unique way. Loading is gentle and the fact it bends this way is guaranteed to protect light lines. Allowing for the fact that light diameter mono would stretch and therefore protect itself somewhat at range, i can only feel that this effect was built in to protect the light nylon snoods whilst using braid. Of course, using braid means that the natural stretch and protective qualities of the line are diminished. So the SRE provides the best of both worlds.

The Blackbird has what i call a true “shallow C” parabolic curve, whilst the SRE has what i would consider a dual compound action.
I have no insight from the company on this, but my feelings are the SRE gets its unique feel from this. Its like 2 hyperbolic actions, and these blend to form the staggered parabolic elongated “C” curve of the rod which can be seen fron the photo’s.
The tip folds away allowing the mid section to work, which in turn seems to fold away at a pre-determined load to feed everything into the butt.
I have no terminology for this, but it does work.