I treated myself – New Toys for Fishing

by MD0MDI
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Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod

Akios Airpower 435RXP Continental Casting Rod

I’ve kind of been bad, but one side of me said that I always wanted a good continental rod one day and it has been a long time coming.

I was after the AirTourque that Akios make, I have cast with that rod and really loved it, I can easily cast over 200yds with that rod and compared to my Zipplex rods its a very comparable rod.

Without any effort at all you can consistently cast over 180yds without having to pendulum cast, which for me tells be the blanks are exceptional, the only difference between the Akios rod and the Zipplex rods is that it feels like you are cheating somewhat, the extra length of the Akios rod and it’s action means that you do not really have to put much effort into the actual casting.

Just as a side note though, The Zipplex is a much more capable rod, once you master it, and with a good Akios multiplier attached to it, it will still out perform the Akios, but if you are fishing, and not tournament casting, then the Akios gives you great range without the effort of thinking what you are doing all the time.

Anyway, it’s kind of a mute point as thanks to shortages all around the world my first Akios rod would have to be theAkios Airpower 435RXP Continental Casting Rod which I knew nothing about.

I could have course bought this online and maybe saved a little in postage, but here on the Isle of Man we have a small, but really great little shop stuck in the middle of some woodland, run strongly by a guy called Kelvin, called Kelvin’s Tackle.

Basically a must and the only place to go on the Isle of Man for quality kit, but it’s the service that is exceptional, he will go out of his way to keep his clients happy.

And it’s always best to keep your local tackle shop happy, especially when times are hard like they are with this Covid crap going around.

So why the Akios Airpower 435RXP Continental Casting Rod, because I could not find anyone that I know who had one, it was not giving me much to choose between.

I did briefly look at Yuki but I was not going to pay out £300 for a rod that did not even come with a bag, I know it’s a minor thing really and I could have always bought a seperate carrying bag for when it comes to Liverpool with me, but I just think that is wrong.

I would have rather they added £25 to the cost and hidden in the cost of the rod.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod

I like to look after my gear and a rod bag is essential.

Quite a few people that I know have picked up the Akios Fury and I did think about this up until a friend said that he was on his third tip, he knew how hard I cast and said that I would be following him down the replacement tip line, that said he said he loves the rods.

So I did a little YouTube research and kind of started to hear a lot of good talk about the AirPower, especially people enjoying Tope Fishing from the shore which is exactly what I wanted the rod for, so I bit the bullet and contacted Kelvin and the rod was ordered.

About a week later and in the middle of my first lot of Chemotherapy Kelvin contacted me to let me know that the rod (and reel) was in stock and I could collect when passing.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod

First Impressions

In the old days all rods were ‘Black’ with bright in your face whipping, Akios have certainly gone for the mostly white stick ‘I’m going to stand out’ feel, but the more you look the more it feels subtle.

I think the White bits are basically essential, to help you find the bloody thing at night, and all the whipping is functional, under stated, quiet even, and there are signs of quality though, everywhere that you look.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Fuji Graphite DPS Reel Seat Giving Secure Reel Seating
Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
The Fuji Alconite K Guides are just beautiful on this rod.
Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Simple but effective contoured base grip.
Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
This is a 'Tournament' Rod in looks and Power

Ask any fisherman and they will tell you that they always love ‘Playing with their Rod’

This one is no exception, it’s got the feel of a real nice, quality item, and with the odd nice feature added for good measure, the real seat is the standard Fuji Graphite DPS reel fitting that you see on so many rods nowadays, but the rings are a nice touch, these are Fuji Alconite K Guides and really set off the look of the rod.

The Decals seem to be all over the rod but are not actually too over powering and a few are totally not needed.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
The only let-down is the quality control over the N-Gage decals

This brings me on to the Akios N-Gage System, which is more an issue with quality control let-down that an actual system that should work.

The basics of the N-Gage system is that in the middle of night or in a rush you can quickly connect the sections together using the N-Gage decals on the rod and without looking your eyes down to the reel seat should all line up – Yeh Right!

Mine are totally off in all sections, talking to others, you may be lucky and just the bottom section of the rod is wrong.

Akios I am sure are really annoyed with this little lapse in quality, and it is really a minor issue, I can only presume that somewhere a labelling machine got bumped and it threw off the alignment of the decals, or if they are done by hand then someone got bored maybe, it is a tad annoying, but it can be easily forgotten.

 You pay out £400 for a brand new rod and you kind of hope that there is nothing wrong with the rod. And physically there is nothing wrong at all with the rod, it casts wonderfully, well so long as you ignore the N-Gage markings, but it does leave a little taste in the mouth, but it is worth it, please read on… 

I love Akios kit, got over 20 multipliers now, 4 heavily modified for casting, and all the others are basically just for fishing, and the build quality of all of them is amazing, this though was my first Akios Rod, and it’s got a bloody decal issue that is a tad annoying, but I will have to live with it.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod

After all you are paying for a power caster that can push a 4-8oz lead (recommended 6oz) at 180yds without any difficulty and with a bloody fixed spool to boot!

Now I mention the Fixed Spool because the reason that I chose this rod was that I am hoping to go fishing in Liverpool during my Radiotherapy and hoping that I will feel well enough to do so.

I know that at the moment, because of the cancer I have in my neck I cannot move my neck as good as I could, so casting with a multiplier is out because of the movement and the possibly lack of being able to seriously concentrate anyway.

So 14′ ft + rod plus a fixed spool reel, and this rod will handle both.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Powerful tip section

The only thing that worried me was the tips on these Continental rods, they really are on the skinny side, and at least 2mm  thinner than my Zipplex and Century Beach Casting rods, but they are meant to be like this and everyone on YouTube certainly sings there praises.

You can certainly load this rod up, in fact you need to, it has a very strange action and it will take getting used to, you actually have to throw it as though you hate it, but with a little grace as well, it needs winding up, and as someone on YouTube said, ‘If you Cant ned it, you can’t send it’ which is very much the case with this blank.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Quite a thin tip on the Akios AirPower but it hides a lot of strength
Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod

The whole rod feel quality, just taking it out into the garden, changing the weights around in the bottom section and flinging it around your head to the delights of the bird life, really does make this rod stand out.

It is so light, and you can feel just how powerful just going through the motions without any leads attached.

But it is recommended that you take out your old rod, and the normal setup that you use, go to a football field, in my case I find them a tad too short so a local farmers field is sometimes better, do some practice casts and make some marks.

Then setup the new toy, and play, if like me you will be pleasantly surprised at just how powerful this rod is, then push it, and I mean really pull it over and put some bend in the blank as you flip it over the shoulder.

I found it was a lot more than I would normally feel comfortable about doing very early on in the cast, and then this really opens this rod up, I got worried at the start and was consistently casting 180yds with a fixed spool, it just felt wrong!

I personally love this rod, its not yet been used in the wet stuff, I am waiting on a few more things to arrive at Kelvin’s but at this point, I certainly think it is worth a punt if you have the money to spare, It is my first Continental style rod, and will be the first time I have ever fished with a fixed spool since I was about 11 years old.

My final thoughts on the rod are this.

It really is a game changer, I started off being a little sceptical at the start that any fixed spool rig would be as good as a multiplier setup with a 12ft rod. I have to compare this to my favourite setup which was (come to this later) my Zipplex M4 Evo and an Akios Torn 555 Mk3 (Modified), I know what this setup casts like, and I know that I am not physically in the best of health of late and my poor neck is carrying a lot of pain and with it a lot less movement, but taking that into account, and using this new beast of a rod along with the TronixPro Virtuoso XT reel and a 6oz lead I visited the local farmers field, laid out a lot of colourful stones and got casting as though my live depended on it.

First off messed around with the weights in the butt section of the rod, got that feeling right, this was fairly straight forward, after that I started casting from the ground until I was happy with the casts that I was doing, and within a short time I truly was smiling, this really is a bloody powerful rod, most proberbly the most powerful blank I have ever cast with in ages, and I was regretting putting a multiplier on it and wishing that I had brought my multipliers to play with it, I should have and I may yet update this later, but I am not sure if my neck would take it at the moment. 

The long and short of it is, constantly casting in excess of 180yds without truly understanding the blank and its action, and by the end of the day I was hitting 200yds more often than not and with a bloody fixed spool reel!!!!

This is ‘Now’ my favourite setup, and I am looking forward to putting a multiplier on it, I also think that I should have gone for the SRS version that uses coasters because I can see me saving up and getting another one of these, but at the moment, I hurt, my neck hurts, but I am grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

This is a VERY powerful rod, and it does need to mastered, and it is so not a case of just throwing over your shoulder, if this is the casting that you do, then maybe this is not the rod for you, but if you are trying to get baits out there, and always looking for distance, then this is a must, I may even sell off my Zipplex rods to enable me to get a couple more of these.

Akios AirPower 435RXP 14' 6" 4-8oz 3 Piece Continental Casting Rod
Counter balance weights are hidden in the base section enabling you change the feel of the rod to your own action.

The Specifications

  • – Length 4.35M (14ft 6″)
  • – Casts 120g – 225g (4-8oz)
  • – 3 Piece
  • – High Modulus NRG
  • – HMX46T Carbon Blank
  • – Hybrid / Spliced Carbon Tip For Ultimate Bite Detection
  • – Fuji Alconite K Guides For Effortless Casting & Durability
  • – Fuji Graphite DPS Reel Seat Giving Secure Reel Seating
  • – Powerful Blank Casting From 4.2oz-8oz (120g-225g)
  • – FAST Blank Action Giving Quick Recovery and Hook Set
  • – Very POWERFUL Blank Giving Ultimate Performance
  • – Reinforced N-Gage Joint System
  • – Counter Balance Weight System in Handle

The Sales Garbage

Akios Airpower 435RXP Continental Casting Rod

Arguably the most powerful three-piece continental style rod on the market, the AKIOS AIRPOWER has been designed with one thing in mind, to offer EXTREME casting capabilities.

With its insanely powerful high modulus HMX46T carbon construction, progressive action and lightning-fast recovery, the rod sets new standards for modern three-piece rods.

This rod is ideal for people wanting a heavy duty rod in 3 piece and is ideal for traveling when targeting bigger species off the shore.

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