After loosing a fish on the first outing, headed to a smallish local river today and managed a couple of pike on my new Epic. I'm still pretty much a novice but it feels a really nice rod and love the wraps on it!! Great fun and a 24" fish pulled the rod right round. Even with a cheap intermediate 8wt it cast well but I'm sure it would benefit from a better line for chucking heavier/bigger flies (I can see why pike flies use synthetics and not half a soggy rabbit
)
It's nearly the end of the season here for river pike but hope to get on some carp and coastal fish in the summer