This is my first review of the Hardy HBX 14,6′ #9/10 spey rod.
The Hardy HBX rod series is manufactured in Alnwick, England. When you look at the rod, starting with the black blank, the guides, the real seat with plastic disc between the two locking nuts , the logo on the rod butt, the cork, everything breads Hardy rod building tradition.
Specification Hardy HBX
Hardy HBX is made of Hardy SINTRIX® 440 nano fiber technology. It has 4 pieces, with a total weight of 278 g (the specifications says 312 g). Each of the rod pieces weighs 181, 54, 30 and 13 g. The cork grip has a total length of 600 mm. It has a double
asymmetric down locking real seat with plastic discs between the locking nuts. The guides are, Fuji® titanium stripper guide and black REC® pearl recoil guides. It has alignment dots.
Setup
The setup for the review is the Hardy HBX 14,6′ #9/10, Danielsson H5D 9thirteen with Varivas 47lb shooting Line, a floating Rio Scandi Versatip 23ft, 33g head, Rio Scandi versatip 15ft 10g tip, in total 43g. and a 15ft tapered leader.
Review / Test
One of the first things I noticed when I got the rod in my hand, was the smooth cork handle, relay nice. The second thing I noticed was that it is a fast action blank with a fast recovery. When I started casting the rod the feedback from the blank to the rod handle was fantastic. Even if I just casted short distances with very low force the blank gave me tons of feedback. This feedback was also valuable when I didn’t made a good cast, I immediately got the answer from the rod. It is easy to get line out even with low effort, but my feeling is that this rod is a really high performance rod. With ordinary casting skills there is no problems to get the line out, but with better timing and good skills this rod has no limits.
This means that if you are an ordinary caster or you starting get tired after a long day of casting you will not benefit the rods full power. If you prefer a slower rod pace then you should load the rod with a higher line weight. This rod is a perfect rod if you want to fish with heavy sinking lines or it is very windy or you want to fish with BIG flies, it will handle all those cases without any problems.
Conclusion
If you believe that your casting skill is not good enough and the rod is too advanced for you, my advice to you is, to buy the rod and start training immediately because you are worthy of a Hardy HBX two hand rod. I really like this rod, it has Hardys rod building traditions with high finish and fantastic performance.
English 
Swedish