TackleThief.com - Fishing Gear Buyer's Guide - Shopping for a Fishing Rod

Buyer's Guide
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Rod Buyer's Guide - Page 4

Shopping for a Fishing Rod (continued) - By Pescador

What kind of guides do you want on the rod?
This question is asked more by a rod builder to someone looking to have a custom made rod built for them. Issues like importance of overall weight of the rod, type of line being used, fresh or salt water, and line size can affect the choices of guides recommended to be installed on the custom rod.

What should I look out for on a factory rod?
• Spline: Hold the rod by the tip in your left hand. Then about a foot and a half down from the tip, take the pointer finger from your right hand and point, then lift up the rod so the butt comes up off the ground. The rod will bend naturally in a certain direction. This is called locating the spline. A properly built rod will naturally bend in the direction that it would normally bend when fighting a fish. So, on a casting rod the guides would be on top. And on a spinning rod the guides will be on the bottom. When checking, if the guides are off at an angle, the rod was not splined correctly. This is less important on a spinning rod, since having the guides on the bottom of the rod adds to the stability while fighting a fish. But on a casting rod, this can cause unwanted twist on the rod, which can be bad for the rod, or cause fatigue in the arm holding the rod due to having to stabilize it.

Blank Through Reel Seat • Reel Seat: For a bait casting rod, when you want sensitivity, you might want to look for what is called a "blank-through reel seat" (fig a1, arrow points to exposed blank area). This means there is a cut out section on the reel seat where the blank is exposed. While palming the reel (holding the rod with the reel in your hand), one of your fingers will be resting over this spot. Being in direct contact with the blank will give you much better sensitivity, which can be dampened by reel seats that don’t have the exposed section, or reel Other Reel Seats seats that are made of plastic (not graphite). Some reel seats also have either a plastic or graphite insert in the hood (fig a2). The hood is the part that actually screws down onto the reel foot, clamping it in place. These are called “cushioned hoods” and act as a type of insulation from the reel seat, which aids in resistance to corrosion. Some brands are better than others. But for the sake of being non-biased, I will not mention which ones. Just ask the salesperson at the tackle shop you frequent which ones are better, and I can almost guarantee that they will say the same brand, which I will still refrain from mentioning to avoid any endorsement.

• Guides: You will want to take a look down the rod while holding the butt grip and make sure that all the guides are lined up in a straight line. Inspect the wraps on the guides to see that there are no inconsistencies in the epoxy finish. Look for spots that have the threads still exposed, due to poorly laid out epoxy. Feel the rings for rough spots and inspect them for cracks or chips.

• Grips: Mainly for cork grips (fig c), you just want to look the cork over and make sure there are no pits in it. Cork is delicate. It nicks easily. If you nick your cork after you bought it, that’s your fault. But you don’t want to buy a rod that already has a nick in it… do you? Other grip materials are the foam grips. Generally there are two species of foam used for grips: hypalon (fig c) and EVA (fig c). These two types of grip material look very much alike, but of the two, hypalon is usually the more expensive one, costing sometimes twice as much as EVA due to its higher density and more durability. You may also see cork tape handle material (fig c) on rods. Usually found on specialty rods like jig sticks and surf rods. This is the stuff that looks like a cork bulletin board with all the “cells” and stuff. The material comes in strips about an inch wide and is laid onto the rod blank in a spiral, covering the area which is to be the grip. You will want to make sure that the edges are tightly packed against each other to the point where it is very difficult to see the separation between them.

(fig c) From top to bottom; cork, cork tape, hypalon, EVA foam
The hypalon and EVA look similar but EVA is usually softer in feel and less durable.