Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Graphite fly rods did break 30 years ago, they still do break today and I think they will break always. Mostly that is when we do something wrong.
Yeah, I know. Some fly rod labels want to make us believe, that their fly rods almost don't break.
In my experience what it takes for a graphite fly rod to break, is us doing something wrong like...
- crashing the rod by closing the door of a car.
- putting the rod on the ground and (accidently) stepping on it.
- stringing up the rod by pulling against the rod easily ends up in breakage.
- casting under the trees puts our rod tip into danger always.
- casting heavily weighted flies and then hitting the tip.
- getting tired after long walks and then dipping down the tip too much (hitting the ground) while carrying the rod put together.
- fighting fish from a boat and then having the fish running under the boat, while crashing the rod on the ship's side.
I can even think of more.
After all the most often causes for rod breakage aren't happening while fishing.
I think around 25% of rod breakage happens while fishing. That mostly is due to high sticking when playing strong fighting fish. That way we have the fish pulling against the rod. The fish doesn't even have to be that strong. Shaking fish and high sticking is a perfect combination to break the rod.
So in order to not break your graphite fly rod you don't need to buy one of those fly rods that may come with some extra weight (extra graphite material) especially in the tip section. I guarantee you they do break anyway, if you will be forcing the rod into one of those typical operator errors. I prefer to have a fly rod that does come in just that strength (and overall blank weight) not to break as long as I use it in a proper way.
Oh, and I prefer to have a fly rod that comes with a long guarantee. You know the one where they won't ask me how stupid I treated my fly rod. ;)
Besides having just been in a serious battle with a proper sized carp and breaking my rod (but winning the battle), I have been teaching double hand fly casting and fishing a lot during the past days.
During the next days I will be running workshops about fly fishing for asp. Can't wait!
Great week to all of you!
All my best
Bernd
P.s.: I think from all my friends Paul is the one who probably broke most graphite fly rods ever. He will claim that is because he was fishing (and casting) the most. But I think the cause is in his socks (and how they smell to be a bit more precise though). ;)
Some pictures as always...