Breaking rods can be fun.

[briansII]

So your fishing streamers on 3x, and you hook a big trout. Are you worried about breaking the fish off.

briansII

[Dry Fly Rie]

That was pretty cool to watch.

[WanderingBlues]

No thanks..... I broke a 50# jig stick tuna fishing this year. The rod sprang back and clipped me in the ear. Felt like an angry nun whacked me with a ruler..

[darrin terry]

Interesting and informative video, Brian. Makes me wonder though, how many will watch this and decide their rods can take more abuse than they thought and how many will think twice about how they treat them from now on.

[midger]

I don't care how much you can bend them--slam them in a car door and they're toast.

It is an interesting video and it makes sense about transferring the stress by changing the rod angle. I've also seen folks * their rods in an effort to get knots through their tiptops and folks * flies in attempts to dislodge them from hangups. Guess that's a no-no, eh?

[fly addict]

I have seen people break their rod tip just by the way they string it up. The correct way is to rap your hand around the tip and pull the line straight out and away from the tip. Incorrect way is hold the rod away from the tip and pull the line out at a right angle from rod tip.

[bassman]

I had a rather expensive baitcasting rod that was the perfect setup for sluggoe fishing. Soft tip with lots of body. Thing was, the soft tip flared into a heavier too quickly. First fish I swung into the boat the top 12" snapped right off. Exchanged the rod for a new one and did the same thing. Went back to the store and got the last one off the rack and was showing the salesman the problem. Put a relatively small bend in the tip and it snapped off in the store. Too bad since it was the best rod for that use I've ever had or seen.

I've put some wicked bends in flyrods before and have yet to have one break. Casting and spinning rods have broken before but never a flyrod. I'd think that if it doesn't break on it's initial outing, then any breakage after that could be attributed to a possibly unremembered smack of some kind that put a weak spot in. Good example would be a beadhead bugger smacking rod as it was whistling by your head at over 70 mph.

[briansII]

Interesting and informative video, Brian. Makes me wonder though, how many will watch this and decide their rods can take more abuse than they thought and how many will think twice about how they treat them from now on.

The thought hadn't even crossed my mind, but please, no one send me bills for any out of pocket warranty work.

briansII

[briansII]

I don't care how much you can bend them--slam them in a car door and they're toast.

It is an interesting video and it makes sense about transferring the stress by changing the rod angle. I've also seen folks * their rods in an effort to get knots through their tiptops and folks * flies in attempts to dislodge them from hangups. Guess that's a no-no, eh?

Most of my rod breakages were from operator error. All except one was the tip section. One I broke the butt section, but that was after I had closed the tailgate on that section. I had two rods break of the same model. I think those were a design flaw, and not my fault.

In the video, I think Tim gave a good explanation of how stress is applied, and then relieved in different sections of the blank. It's not all that easy to break a rod when it's flexed on a fish(non salt/bluewater). In an indirect way, I think the video shows how hard it is to break a fish off with anything over 5lb tippet. With 5x, and well tied knots, you would have a difficult time breaking the tippet with a flexed rod. 3X would be close to breaking your rod if it has a progressive bend(not high sticking). I cannot remember the last time I actually broke a fish off on 3X. Pulled the fly, or straighten the hook, yeah, but not actually break the leader/tippet. A while back I snagged a big suckerfish in the back on 2X. I tried breaking it off with a straight pulled, and all that accomplished was to drag the fish in sideways, against the current.

Why I bring this up is, I've been reading a thread on another forum about being "under gunned" with lighter rods. Consensus(never get a real consensus on a fly fishing forum ) is, the rod is not the limiting factor for the amount of time it takes to land and release a fish. It's the angler.

briansII