This Barbus Maximus is from the same source as the 2008 Chris Yates Bishop I’ve recently listed. It, too, has never been used and has clearly not seen daylight more than once or twice. The specification is absolutely tip-top (now £2,500) and you won’t have to wait two years or more- you don’t have to wait at all!
The MK II Barbus Maximus is still, in my view, the ideal cane rod for proper touch ledgering for barbel and chub. When I used mine, I didn’t find it lacking in any respect. By the time of its inception, we had been making and using our Chris Yates barbel rods for a decade. We had a lot experience and customer feedback to draw upon.
More and more often, in the very late nineties, we were asked to make slightly stepped-down Bishop carp rods and slightly stepped-up Merlin Avon rods. Their owners wanted these rods for the barbel and chub fishing that had evolved over the decade since we launched the Barbus Maximus. I presented the first MK II to Chris Yates in 2000. He christened it with a whopper, just as he had done with the MK I ten years earlier. He went on to use his MK II great deal and it has his full approval.
Specification.
Hand-made split cane blank built to a tolerance of +/- one thousandth of an inch.
Nickel silver fittings throughout, including finely knurled handle fittings and a reinforced waterproof splint-end suction ferrule.
A hand turned Poplar wood & cork ferrule stopper.
Burgundy silk ring whippings and graduated ‘old gold’ intermediate whippings.
Sapphrite Laurels hard chrome plated stainless steel bridge rings and Amberfin butt and tip rings.
For grade cork for the 24″ handle.
A hand forged nickel silver strap to secure the hook keeper ring.
Test curve: 1½ pounds.
Reel lines: 6 – 8 pounds breaking strain.
Casting weights: 1 ounce +.
The rod comes in its tailored bag.