About Drennan
Drennan International was founded in 1967 when Peter Drennan began producing balsa wood floats in his mother's garage in Oxford. Drennan had served an informal apprenticeship around some of the most capable anglers of the era, including Dick Walker, Peter Stone, the Taylor brothers and England's first world champion Bill Lane, and the float business grew into one of the largest coarse-fishing tackle companies in Britain, with a catalogue that now runs past 2,500 products. The company has sponsored the England international team since 1993 and its consultant roster includes five-time world champion Alan Scotthorne.
The rod range is built entirely around UK-style coarse fishing and splits into four families. Acolyte is the flagship match range, slim high-modulus carbon blanks covering float rods from 11ft to 17ft and feeder rods from 9ft to 14ft, including the Distance Feeder models developed with Scotthorne and Drennan's match team. Vertex covers the same commercial match territory at a mid price, Red Range is the entry level, and the Specialist family serves barbel, tench, bream and general big-fish work with test-curve-rated two-piece rods in olive green. Rods are sold through tackle dealers in the UK and continental Europe rather than direct, and Drennan publishes specifications without retail prices.
What Drennan is known for
Drennan is best known in match circles for the Acolyte range, which has become a reference point for commercial and natural-water match rods: the Ultra float models are the light-line specialists, the Plus versions the all-rounders, and the Distance Feeder family the long-chuck tools. The Specialist rods carry the brand's river heritage, with barbel models from 1.5lb to 2.25lb test curve and Specimen rods for tench and bream. Feeder anglers know the brand for its push-in quivertip system, with glass and carbon tips rated in ounces supplied with each rod. In this catalog its closest neighbours are the match and feeder ends of Daiwa and Shimano's European ranges.