hi,first time here.
i am new to pole fishing and have a shimano solstace 12.5m pole.does anyone know if its any good for medium sized carp/tench

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Not used the model you mention but what elastic rating is given for it?

its rated to 12 elastic

12 would be fine for tench or small carp - it's not that long ago that "carp" poles were only rated to this. My first carp pole, bought around 8 years ago, was only rated to 10 and I landed carp to 14lb10oz on it. Carp to 3 or 4lb were fine on a 10, anything bigger could be a bit of a handful.

HTH

Will

Will's said it all.

thanks for the advice will, much appreciated

If you have a balanced hook, hooklength, main line and elastc you should be able to land carp and tench ok.
I do most of my general pole fishing using a size 8 elastic and have landed tench to approx 6lb, bream to 8lb and carp to 12lb.

I have a Shimono Technium XTA 13m pole elastice rating is 20 though i only use 16's or 18's and i have quite easley landed carp up 15lb on it, but as a rule most Shimano poles are designed to handle a nice size fish.

A mate of my mate did something weard with his pole,he wasn't satisfied with it's stiffnes so he just threw away the top,glued the teflon top ontop second section (a 4mm one,I think),and turned allround pole@carp pole,and vice-versa when needed,so if it's only rated 12 it doesn't have to be that bad if you need to fish carp (sometimes)!
Pozdrav from Serbia
Zoki

What I will say is when using it and playing a large fish, let the elastic do the work. Don't lift the pole high in the air but keep the tip low and with a slight angle to the fish. Make sure you don't point the pole directly at the fish as the top set can be pulled off. Keeping the pole long slowly ship the pole back when the elastic is retracting and once you have got hold of the top set then you cna lift the fish to the net. Try lifting 6 or metres of pole into the air and you are asking for a breakage.