The default package is a two-piece rod with a spare tip in a tweed rod-bag. As an extra, Charles Clemes can provide a luscious dark leather tube into which the butt and twin-tip sections slide gracefully. Or, if you want to go all-out, the presentation package is a long, slim, dark wooden case, inside which the butt and tip sections are cosseted in felt-lined slots, a Charles Clemes Model 278 reel nestles in a niche at one end, and in the example sent for review a silk Phoenix line lies tucked under the rod sections.

The default rod and bag looks simple and purposeful. The leather tube feels and even smells special. The display case takes it to whole other level. Somehow the ceremony of unlatching the brass catches and lifting the heavy lid seems appropriate with a cane rod, I suspect I would find it all a little too much, too ostentatious, for a carbon rod. Maybe that's because I know cane rods are hand-made, that someone spent years learning the crafts needed to make this, and then spent days making the rod in my hand.

Similar attention to detail has been paid to the parts brought together here – the reel seat is solid nickel-silver, the walnut spacer is turned from 400-year old Turkish walnut! And it's an up-locking seat, which breaks with cane traditions but suits my taste. This grip is reverse half-wells – fairly long and plump – actually larger than I like on a rod this size, but the grip can be customised so no worries, and the cork is first-class. The butt ring is lined with agate, and the high arched snakes above that are neatly whipped to the shaft of the rod.

Based on a Garrison taper, this has pretty much the action I expect from a cane rod, words like through and slow are followed by mellow and forgiving. The cane sections are precisely put together. The culm was split rather than sawn and the nodes have a Leonard stagger. To my eye, despite the American taper and choice of high-arched rings, some things about this rod hint at traditional British cane rod building: the medium-blond blank, those wine-coloured whippings with a tiny contrasting tip to each tying (thankfully black, rather than gold) a modest build-up on the excellent varnish work.

Then casting. To level the field, I chose a conventional synthetic #3 floating line rather than a silk line. This is a 7ft 3-weight, I would fish a rod that length on small streams and choose that line-weight for delicate presentation, so the emphasis has to be on short casting and loop control, the leader must straighten.

OK, so, the first few casts were complete nonsense! With a few yards of line outside the tip I feel I want a short, sharp stroke, the Clemes sort of slaps me around and I have to go along with its rhythm. Slower, longer, smoother. Even when I find that rhythm my loops are not needle tight, not at all, but the leader unfolds and the slender line floats down.

I found I could shoot line, but frankly at the distances I was casting I had no need. I suppose hauling simply reduced the amount of rod movement I needed; it did make sure the line was tight at the critical time – where simply holding the line in my line-hand doesn't maintain tightness, when the rod is moving forwards, towards the line-hand.

Accuracy can mean forcing, punching a fly to the target or just above it, altenatively it can mean being able to repeat the same time and again – this is more about time and again.

According to the makers this weighs 120g. Naturally, it feels heavier than an equivalent carbon rod and I think I have less feel, less sense of the line. Thing is, when casting short there is simply very little line mass and drag to feel, so perhaps feeling the rod more actually helps. The line-rating given seems to suit short-range casting where most equivalent carbon rods often want a heavier line or suit longer casting.

If you have a taste for cane rods the Charles Clemes Split Cane 7ft No.3 is beautifully made and presented, hints at traditional British rod making, and as a fishing rod as far as I can see this is exactly fit for its function.