You will find the following information about a rod printed on it most of the times:
Rod Length;
Rod Action;
Casting/Lure Weight; and,
Line Poundage.
The first three are not hard to understand. But the 4th one is a bit puzzling.
It may mean that the use of a line within a particular range will have the rod behave at the optimum performance. It may also mean that it is a warning if you use a line exceeding the given strength, the rod will give way first instead of the line. And if you use a line weaker than the recommended range, the line will break easily.
It’s the poundage of the rod tip to the rod butt… when stated 4-10lb, means the tip can handle force to the max of 4lb and the butt can withstand 10lb…
Tat’s wat i;ve heard but as u know with so many materials, conjob and wat not out there… it’s hard to determine all of them are tat accurate at all or not
All boil down to preference also… like the rod state u can use max of 7gram lure, however if a deep diving crankbait the pressure when they dive is much more than 7gram so it;s up to the usage as well
Novice angler here, any constructive advices greatly appreciated. Thank you
i think TJS got the gist of it already concerning rods with ratings of A-B lbs, where A is denoting the front portion, and B the butt section.
there are rods with one rating only, for example the Golden Mean Sable Dance PE2 Jigging rod. this rod has a parabolic flex, as the weight is equally distributed along the whole rod. i’ve compared it to the PE1-2 model, and both behave very differently indeed.
" .. when stated 4-10lb, means the tip can handle force to the max of 4lb and the butt can withstand 10lb… " - TJS
this is the information that leads to your selection of what poundage of line to use. I was originally a bit surprised when the experts recommended that we should not use the maximum ( in the above case, 10 lbs ) for most rods. Their advice is to go for about mid way between 4 and 10 - so since there is no 7 lb line, I stuck to 8 lb.
There are occasions when sankar bashing / snag infested, ponds the conditions have caused me to use as heavy as 15 lb ( 50% over the maximum ! ) but always remember to set your drag to 1/3 of the 10 lb specification. The rod does not know the strength of your line - only the load which you put on it - and your drag setting then becomes very important.
Have followed their advice for years - no regrets.[:)]
The A-B poundage on the rod usually applies to fast action rods, wherease in the case of slow action rods, normally it’sonly one rating as per FT had mentioned earlier. However having said that, is the poundage stated on the rods [if it’s true] meant for mono or braided lines? Now thats where the grey areas comes into play.
According to several websites and experts opinions, the rods that are build for braided line usage will state the poundage for braided lines while the rest stated are for mono lines.
Now many rods irrespective whether they are branded or elcheapo states that they comes with SIC guides. We know SIC guides are meant to handle braided lines; so is the poundage stated also meant for braided lines?
Let us not forget the important fact that the breaking strenght of a 10lb mono and a similar poundage braided differs tremendously. If we were to ASSUME that the poundage stated on the rod is meant for braided, then we will most probably end up with a busted rod. On the pther endof the spectrum, if we were to ASSUME the stated poundage is meant for mono then we are under utilising the capabilities of the rod.
The decision we have to make is…Go max or even above max and risk the possibility of a busted rod, or go under for safety measure.
As for my worthless opinion and experience, I will combine both by going for the max poundage bur compensate with the correst drag setting of the reel.</font id=“purple”>
Rod specs can be frustrating to understand at times.. when you will see differences from certain manufacturers in they style of ratings…
The line poundage stated on rods are just a guide for the angler… the lb-age rating for the rod is to serve as a guide for the amount of power for the rod and also the line size that can be used (this is more apparent for rods made for the Japanese market) as their guides can be tiny and therefore limiting the dia. of the line used… moving on.. a good guide for the lb-age rating would be to take the average lb-age.. say for example.. a 4 - 12lb rod.. the ideal line size would be about 8lbs… and so on and so forth… however with GSP lines.. we usually go heavier…
For me what is most important when getting a rod is how it performs when casting and also when using it to play the fish.
No pain no gain, dont try dont know… muahahahahaha
Yes, to me also, it can all be a bit confusing - and we have not even started to consider whether the stated figures are accurate - and also whether there is consistency in quality between each and every similar rod even though they should have been identical !
The above not withstanding, quite often looking at examples is also a good guide.
For example, in Boon Mah last weekend, I was using my 6 year old 7 foot Daiwa ProCaster - 8 - 17 lb spec. but with a 20 lb braided line ( 50 lb ASSO leader ), with drag set to 5 lbs. Absolutely no problems with the siakaps that weighed 8 - 12 kg because there were no snags, and I gently used my finger on the spool when I struck.
So again, look at the specs - but you can go heavier so long as you set the drag according to the maximum the rod is designed for - 1/3 of the higher stated figure - and use your finger gently when needed.
Yup, LS is right, use it as a guide. Find a rod for your intended style and type of fishing.
The line won’t break that easily if you set the drag appropriately.
And yes, intelligent use of your finger (as drag) on the spool will also ensure higher chance of success.
Line rating for rods usually serves as a guide… just be aware of it and you would be fine… don’t worry too much about using heavier GSP/braided lines, I find it to be ok.. u will usually find 2 things happening when u over test the line as per the rod line rating…
Your rod will bread from the abuse
Your rod will loose power… ie. over load.. you will find that you will have absolutely no control over the fish once u reach this stage…
However, as you progress in your fishing, with experience… you would be able to figure out the rods line ratings just by holding and bending the rod…
A lot of feel comes into play when it comes to rods, over time you would be able to figure it out.. just like everyone else…
If you think that is confusing.. you have not come to look at rod actions yet, this is rarely stated on the rod… there is parabolic, fast taper, xtra fast, medium, medium fast and so on and so forth…
However, Fishing is not rocket science… it was never meant to be nor will it ever be…
No pain no gain, dont try dont know… muahahahahaha