REVIEW
Chris Kennedy explains why the Ian Golds 7-foot Super Match DB1 still reigns supreme as the best tripod on the market
We take sea fishing tripods for granted, but they are a necessity unless you are fishing from a boat, pier or breakwater. They haven’t really changed much in decades in terms of their evolution and design. They do a simple job, but not all are equal. I am now just about into my fifth decade of shore angling in the UK, and I want to explain which tripod I have used most and why. Tripods are not cheap anymore, and here at Sea Angler we don’t want you to waste your money.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD TRIPOD?
I expect there will be some variation in the answers to this question if I were to run a poll. I would say stability has to be at the forefront because if your rods hit the shingle, rock or whatever else, you are almost certainly going to damage the guides. A tripod must get the weight right: if it is too heavy, you just simply won’t bother taking it with you to marks that require a decent walk. If it istoo light, you’ll lose stability. One of the first tripods I bought with my own money, as opposed to pinching them from my father, was the Shakespeare Salt, which many of you will be familiar with. It has a distinctive metallic blue coating of paint that is easily recognisable on the beach. This tripod was solid, you could adjust the length of the legs and centre column, it was stable and it felt like it would last a long time. However, within a short space of time, I began to loathe the thing.
Why? It weighed a ton. Whether carrying them from a car park to a local beach spot, or those long Jurassic Coast hikes to Dorset rock marks, I just felt like it added significantly to the arduousness and pain of the trip, especially when carrying food, water, rods, camera kit, reels, terminal tackle and bait. Eventually, after a long session at Hengistbury head fishing for sole and small-eyed rays, I saw a builder’s skip and threw it in. I just couldn’t face carrying the thing again. I don’t want to do Shakespeare a disservice; the Salt tripod is well-designed, and it will last, but it was just too heavy for me. I would recommend it if you are fishing 30 yards from the car.
I used a cheap £15 one for a while. It was ok on sandy beaches, but I never felt my expensive Century rods were safe, and the components were a bit “Fisher Price”, as you’d expect from something so modest in price. Next, I picked up a 6ft Leeda Icon black tripod, which I still have in my shed, and that has been all over the world with me, from Norway’s Arctic to windswept South Atlantic islands.
I’ll be honest, I wish they’d done a 7ft version at the time. It was a good weight, with plenty of stability and it took a reasonable beating on the rocks. It’s nice there are some optional extras like a mesh ba
