Gaelforce Equalizer G+ Extreme Distance Spey Rod - 15ft 1in Combo

The Gaelforce Equalizer G+ Extreme Distance Spey Rod - 15ft 1in Combo is not a rod and line package, and that is the first thing to get straight before you read any further. Combo here is short for Combination rod. Gaelforce sells this as model GEG+16151W, the G+ Graphene Weapon Extreme Distance Combination, and what arrives is seven graphene rod sections rather than four: two butt sections, two mid sections and three tips. Those seven pieces assemble into five different four piece rods across two formats, a 16ft 10/11# salmon rod and a 15ft 1in Weapon Extreme Distance competition rod. No fly line, no reel and no head is included. Gaelforce lists nothing beyond the rod, its aluminium tube and its cloth bag on this product, and the price gap between this and the standard G+ 15ft 1in Weapon in Gaelforce's own catalog is the cost of the three extra sections, not the cost of a line.

That is a specific answer to a specific problem. Anyone serious about distance casting ends up owning two rods that live in the same car: a big powerful fishing rod for wide water, and a competition stick that only earns its keep on a casting ground. The two rarely share a taper and never share a tube. This one does. You fish Format 1 on the river in the morning, swap the tip for the 20 percent stronger one and you are casting Fine and Far Off, or swap in the Weapon butt and you have a full competition rod for snake rolls over both shoulders. It is one rod tube for a job that normally takes three.

Blank

Graphene, Not Graphite - This is the G+ range, and Gaelforce keeps it in a separate catalog category from its graphite Extreme Distance rods for a reason. Gaelforce describes the G+ Equalizer Graphene rods as blending the proven tapers of the original Equalizer with what it calls the strongest and lightest material ever used in a fly rod. The claims it makes for what that buys you are specific rather than vague: reduced swing weight, significantly faster recovery, improved straight line tracking through the forward stroke, and a noticeable reduction in tip rebound. Tip rebound is the one that matters most on a rod this long. A 16ft blank that is still oscillating when the loop forms puts waves into an 80ft head, and that costs you distance on exactly the cast you bought the rod to make. A non graphene GE16151 Weapon Combination exists in Gaelforce's graphite range and is a different rod at a different price.

The Five Formats - Gaelforce publishes each configuration and what it is for. All of them are four piece rods built from the same seven sections.

• Format 1, 16ft G+ 10/11# Standard - The fishing rod. Deep flex into the butt with quick recovery, a strong tip that lifts line off the water without side deflection, and a deep progressive action. Gaelforce says the blank design places no restrictions on which type of line it is suited to, and that it will cast suitably matched floating or sinking spey lines, shooting heads and Skagit lines
• Format 2, 16ft butt with the 20 percent stronger tip - The rod becomes a very powerful Extreme Distance rod for casting long lines, in Gaelforce's phrase, Fine and Far Off
• Format 3, 16ft butt with the 11 inch shorter tip, 15ft 1in overall - An overhead Extreme Distance rod with serious power. This is the format that pairs with an overhead distance head rather than a spey head
• Format 4, 15ft 1in Weapon butt with the standard tip - The Extreme Distance setup proper, built for long snake rolls and the related speycasts in the Extreme Distance and competition disciplines
• Format 5, 15ft 1in Weapon butt with the 20 percent stronger tip - The full competition build. Serious reserves of power with lightning fast recovery, intended to cover all competition disciplines

What Gaelforce Does Not Publish - Worth stating plainly, because this listing would be easy to pad. Gaelforce prints a spec table on its graphite rods giving blank weight, tube length and separate action, recovery and tip ratings. On every rod in the G+ Extreme Distance Graphene category, including this one, that table reads no specification details. So there is no published blank weight for this rod, no published tube length, and no three field action rating. Nothing of the kind appears anywhere in this description, and the figures printed for the graphite GE16151 Combination are not carried across. Ask us before you order if a specific number decides the purchase and we will put the question to Gaelforce.

Finish - Matte green with rich silver whippings and the G+ logo. Every section carries an alignment dot, which on a seven section rod is not a decoration. You are assembling a different four piece rod each time you build it, sometimes on a competition ground under time pressure, and the dots are what keep the guides genuinely in line rather than close enough to load the blank unevenly.

Guides

Stripping Guides - Fuji stripping guides. On a distance rod the stripper is the hardest working component on the blank, because every cast fires the whole shooting line through it at the highest line speed you can produce. A hard, low friction insert is the difference between a head carrying its full potential distance and losing a few feet to drag right at the butt, and it will not groove and start shaving coating off a running line after a season of heavy practice.

Snake Guides - Hard chrome snake guides run the length of the rod. Hard chrome is the corrosion resistant, low mass standard on salmon rods, so it survives wet Atlantic weather and tidal beats, and it keeps mass off the tip sections. On this rod that matters three times over, since three separate tips have to recover cleanly and two of them are being asked to do competition work.

Reel Seat

The rod uses a superior grade ALPS Tri-Lock down locking reel seat. Down locking puts the reel further back and moves the balance point toward your lower hand, which is what stops a 16ft rod feeling tip heavy, and it is the conventional arrangement on salmon rods for exactly that reason. The Tri-Lock uses a triple lock arrangement rather than a single knurled nut, so a heavy salmon reel stays clamped through the volume of casting a competition rod sees in a practice session, where a simpler seat works loose. The handles are Gaelforce's finest AAAA Flor grade slim cork. AAAA Flor is the top cork classification, with the fewest pits and fills, and the slim profile matters when both hands stay wrapped around cork for hundreds of hard casts. Gaelforce fits black non slip EVA handles instead of cork on its Boomer models only, so this rod is the cork one.

Rod Tube

The rod ships in an aluminium tube finished in Gaelforce Green with a laser engraved rod cap, plus a high quality cloth bag with rod identification. This is the G+ Graphene presentation rather than the cordura tube and plain cloth bag used on the standard graphite Equalizer ranges. The rod identification on the bag is more useful here than on a normal rod, because you are storing seven sections that include two butts, two mids and three tips, and two of those tips differ from each other by 11 inches while two others differ only in stiffness. Gaelforce does not publish a tube length for any rod in the G+ Extreme Distance Graphene category, so if the tube has to fit a specific travel case or a car, ask us and we will measure the one we ship.

Warranty

Gaelforce does not publish written warranty terms for its rods, so we are not going to quote you a coverage period or a fee schedule that we cannot stand behind. Rods are covered against defects in materials and workmanship, and claims are handled case by case through the dealer network. If you have a problem with a rod, get in touch with us and we will point you to the current process. Keep your receipt and keep the tube, since both make any claim simpler.

More Info

• What Is In The Box: Seven rod sections, one aluminium rod tube and one cloth bag. Combo refers to the multi format rod, not to an included line or reel
• Rod Action: Deep progressive with a strong tip and lightning quick recovery, per Gaelforce's G+ series description. Gaelforce publishes no separate action, recovery and tip ratings for the G+ Extreme Distance models
• Best For: Big river salmon fishing in the 16ft format, and extreme distance and competition speycasting in the 15ft 1in Weapon formats, including long snake rolls and overhead distance work
• Grip Style: Full two handed spey, AAAA Flor grade slim cork
• Ability Level: Advanced to Expert. Four of the five formats are distance and competition builds, and the heads they take are meant to be cut to fit
• Line Rating: 10/11# in the 16ft standard format. The Weapon Extreme Distance formats are competition tapers that Gaelforce specifies by matched head rather than by an AFTM number
• Length and Sections: 16ft and 15ft 1in, seven sections, five four piece configurations
• Blank Material: Graphene. This is the G+ range, not the graphite Extreme Distance range
• Model Code: GEG+16151W, which is also our SKU
• Components: Fuji stripping guides, hard chrome snake guides, ALPS Tri-Lock down locking reel seat, AAAA Flor grade slim cork handles, alignment dots on every section, matte green finish with rich silver whippings, G+ logo, aluminium Gaelforce Green tube with laser engraved cap, cloth bag with rod identification

Recommended Lines

Gaelforce publishes a recommended line list on this model's own page, and it names three 80ft Extreme Distance heads plus the Stormer overhead head. Those cover Formats 2 through 5. Formats 1 through 3 are also the only ones with a published line type answer for fishing, since Gaelforce says the 16ft standard format takes floating or sinking spey lines, shooting heads and Skagit lines without restriction.

Gaelforce Equalizer Extreme Distance Head - The EED80 Lite, 80ft and 1234 grains as it leaves the factory, and the lightest of the three 80ft heads. Gaelforce lists it for this rod. Being the lightest of the family, it is the one that reaches a finished cut length without trimming deep into the taper, which makes it the sensible starting point if this is your first EED head.

Gaelforce Equalizer Weapon Extreme Distance Head - Our listing for the rest of the EED family, sold by grain weight. The 1296 grain option is the 80ft Altitude head at 84 grams and the 1342 grain option is the 80ft Weapon head at 87 grams, and Gaelforce lists both of those on this rod as well. The 1420 and 1466 grain options are the 85ft and 90ft heads, which Gaelforce aims at 18ft platform casting rather than at a 15ft 1in rod. All of them share the same exceptionally supple coating, which is what lets a long head hold its shape at high line speed instead of collapsing the loop.

Gaelforce Equalizer Stormer Extreme Distance Overhead - A 65ft head at 848 grains, and the fourth line Gaelforce lists here. It is the overhead distance head rather than a spey head, which makes it the direct match for Format 3, the 16ft butt with the shorter tip that Gaelforce built as an overhead Extreme Distance rod. Gaelforce fits a new front taper and a supple front profile mix to it for turnover in strong shifting wind, and it fishes straight out of the box without cutting.

Cutting is the part that surprises people. Gaelforce expects you to tune an EED head to your rod, your stroke and your wading depth, and it publishes how. You may trim at the rear or the front, with a maximum of 18 inches or 45cm at the front, without altering the essential flight characteristics of the line. Its guideline puts a finished head at 70ft to 73ft for experienced distance casters on 15ft competition rods, or 68ft to 69ft on rods with less power and for intermediate casters, and 80ft and above for 18ft platform casting. The method is worth following exactly: trim from the rear, make the first cut at least 18 to 24 inches longer than your target, attach it to a shooting line and cast it, then take 3 inches at a time and cast between each step. Keep every offcut, since those spare sections build up into short lengths you can add back for different disciplines or for training. Gaelforce is blunt that there is no single correct length. If you are casting a Spey-O-Rama format of four casts over both shoulders, it says to tune to the weakest of the four; in an ICSF format of one cast over each shoulder, tune to the weaker of the two.

For Format 1 as a fishing rod, the in house matches are the Gaelforce Equalizer Spey Fly Line - 73ft and the Gaelforce ESP Skagit Patriot Shooting Head. The 73ft line is stocked from 756 to 848 grains and its 848 grain option carries Gaelforce's 10/11 designation in the SKU, which lines up with the 16ft format's 10/11# rating; the 63ft version of the same line covers the same rating at 802 grains if you want a shorter head to handle. The Skagit Patriot runs 450 to 650 grains on a 24ft head for sink tips and heavy flies. Gaelforce publishes no per model grain chart for this rod, so treat these as the right families rather than as a printed pairing, and ask us if you want a starting grain before you order.

Every Extreme Distance head and the Skagit Patriot are shooting heads, and none of them fishes without a running line behind it. The Gaelforce Equalizer Shooting Fly Line - ESL is the matched option, with a slick coating carrying an agent that migrates to the surface to keep it shooting, a memory free and tangle free core, and compact loops at both ends. Its front loop is oversized at eight inches so the largest salmon reels pass straight through it, which turns swapping between a cut head and an uncut one into a two minute job on the bank instead of a rebuild.