STAFF BLOG
Maintaining your fishing rod
■First of all
Hi I am HND from division of customer service.
Because of corona virus, we have a lot of time at home these days.
So we are going to present you guys some articles about “Maintaining your fishing rod”
As a professional of maintaining fishing rod, I am going to tell you some tips.
We really appreciate that if you refer to this article for your maintaining fishing rod.
・FAQ
１Cause of noise from blanks
We have FAQ recently about noise from blanks.
We heard that several kinds of noise come out from blanks depend on the case.
We know that those noises might make you anxious on durability or take your concentration away
while fishing. So we are going to introduce the reason why that is happened.
① Noises from guides
Most of noise from blanks comes from guides.
And it usually happened right after you have purchased it.
Guides are fixed with thread and epoxy several times.
Yet that kind of noises usually come up when epoxy adhesive did not settle on thread and guides,
it will disappear after settle down.
If it will not go away, please let agents or retailers know without any hesitations.
② Water inside of Tip section
Factors that is increasing recently.
Although, that is happened if you dropped Tip section into the water,
that might be happened when you wash fishing rod with high pressure of water such as shower of bathroom.
If water goes into blank, it will cause of not only noise but also changes of feelings as a proper rod.
And that will make joint loose and it will cause of breakage of bottom of tip section.
⇩
③ Other possibility
・Defection of adhesion of grip parts
・Foreign materials inclusion(Sand or else)
Yet there are possibility of it, still ① or ② are more positive.
２Looseness of joint
Clacks on the edge of bottom of tip section caused by looseness of joint.
If that was happened, you have to replace blank of tip section as same as when it was snapped off.
Considerable reasons of it are casting or input the action while leaving looseness of joint.
If you feel that joint become loose in short time period even you check it often,
please check our previous article about jointing each section of fishing rod.
⇩
「How to joint」
First of all, please note that joint will become loose while fishing.
Because joint will be stretched every time when you cast or load.
Those factors make joint loose.
According to those elements, we recommend you to check joint of rod once in several times of casting.
That will make rod longer lasting for sure.
We are going to present tips of solving fixation.
Things that you should not do.
⇒Please do not use lubricant oil!!!
Constituent of oil will go into the gap of joint and that will make joint stick together.
That is really trouble!! Its hardly separated for sure.
⇒Please do not hold guides!!
Guides will be bent of course!
If that is happened, you need more cost than you have expected.
In worse case, blanks will be snapped off because of crooked foot of guides.
If blanks have snapped off, you have to replace blanks themselves and cost you
more expensive than you have expected.
We have article of tips of solving fixation on our web site.
Please refer to it as well.
⇩
「How to separate a stuck fishing rod joint」
３Looseness of reel seat
（About rods for big game such as large blue runner）
Next, we are going to explain about looseness of reel seat.
Yet depends which is your dominant hand, nut of reel seat might be loosed by touching by finger accidentally. But we thinks that possibility of it is quite low.
We have reported from customer that hood of reel seat have been clacked.
Most of reason of it is “tighten too much!”.
Of course it might be depend on compatibility of reel and seat.
As you know already, you have to screw hood up to clench, the power is loaded more than you think.
If you clench the nut as tight as you can to reduce the possibility of looseness, possibility of cracking
will be increased. Or that might be cause of fixation of hood and reel.
And hood and main nut might be separated in worst case.
If you feel the lock nut become loose often, it might be not made use of advantage of lock nut.
About lock nut
１． Tighten main nut
２． Tighten lock nut
３． Loose only main nut a little
These three steps are required
If you forget Step 3, you will not be made use of advantage of lock nut.
This advantage is thanks to rub in between main nut and lock nut.
And rub will be increase by taking step 3.
On the other hand, fixation of hood might be solved if you tighten main nut.Next, in case of long nut
As a structurally, long nut has high level of rub and easier to tighten up.
That is why you might tighten too much if it is log nut.
Although long nut is equipped on rods for big fish game and you might be worried about looseness of nut
while fishing, hood of your reel seat might be cracked if you tighten too much.
So please keep it in your mind when you tighten it up.
・Tips for avoiding breakage
１．Try not to lay down your fishing rod on ground
You or other anglers might step on your fishing rod.
Basically, keep your fishing rod stand.
If you lay it down on ground after you landed fish, you or other anglers might step on your fishing rod and that might be cause of breakage.
We recommend that your fishing rod should be kept standing.
We believe that rod holder is the one of handy item of course.
2． Please pay attention on transporting
We hear often that anglers catch a fishing rod in the car door or window and snapped off.
We recommend you to make sure that there are enough room on tip and butt end when you store fishing rod
in the car.
Also you should not leave something heavy on top of your fishing rod.
Yet, you usually have to carry tackle box, cooler box or something heavy when you got to fish of course, you had better to put fishing rod on top of them.
If you put fishing rod with lure in the car, you should make sure that drag is loosened to avoid risk of snap off.
3． Make sure tangled line with rod, position of bail and joint of rod
・Casting with tangled line on guides
・Casting with wrong position of Bail of reel
・Casting with looseness of joint
If you cast with condition like above, it may cause of breakage.
◎Breakage of improper angle of fishing rod
4． Making sure that you should be very careful when you land fish
Sometimes we see that anglers pull fish out from water and land it without net.
That kind of action makes us worry very much.
We believe that “Pulling fish out” is required lots of experiences, skills and ability of judgement.
Judge the weight of fish, guess how heavy loading it is, capitalize centrifugal force, considering the height
from water surface, angle of rod…
you have to maintain lots of factors to succeed it.
“Pulling fish out” put high amount of loading on blanks besides angle of rod and line become sharp angle.
Which means that more chance to get result of breakage if the angle of rod and line become sharper
and sharper. So, we recommend you to land fish with net strongly.
Dangling fish with your fishing rod after landing is also quite risky action.
If you try to move fish closer to yourself, fishing rod stands up and get sharper angle than you think.
Please imagine that if fish struggle at that time…
5．Please secure the angle when you check flexibility or drag of reel.
We know that right after you have purchased fishing rod, we can understand that you really want to hold it,
bend it or have practice cast.
But please note that “bend it yourself” have risk of breakage.
If you try to bend tip section by yourself, the angle of tip section become too sharp, sharper than you have
expected.
We might be able to say that if you try to adjust drag weight by yourself while holding rod and pull the line
towards you,
it will not be adjusted properly besides it might be cause of breakage of tip section.
6．Spooling up your lure into top guide, it will be cause of breakage.
If you spool up your lure into top guide, huge power will be applied intensively.
◎Breakage of passing its strength limit
7． Usage beyond the limit of specification on catalog.
We indicate line class and lure weight which are used by anglers comfortably.
Please note that if you used it beyond the limit of specification obviously, it will be cause of breakage.
8． Try not to unset your hook from structure forcefully
Unsetting your hook from structure forcefully, it might cause of breakage.
Please note that do not cross the line of limit of blank’s strength when you try to unset your lure
from structure to reduce the risk of breakage.
We recommend you to use line breaker when you unset your lure from structure.
9． Scratches or cracks that might cause of breakage
Lure hit your fishing rod when you unset it from structure…
Hit your fishing rod against rocks or pier when you are making action…
Accumulation of those cases could be cause of breakage.
Yet it is depends how often you go to fish, we thinks that it is important to make sure the condition of
your fishing rod before, while and after fishing to reduce the risk of breakage.
・Tips of cleaning your fishing rod
If you will not be able to go to fish and staying home, why don’t you cleaning and maintain your fishing rod?
We are going to introduce some tips of it.
① Wash and rinse with warm water
First of all, wash your rod with shower to remove grime on surface of blanks.
Please make sure that temperature and pressure of water from shower.
Water might be come into blanks if you wash it with high pressured water.
Coating of epoxy might be damaged if you wash it with hot water.
Please scrub guide ring and frame with soft toothbrush to remove grime.
② Wipe up with soft fabric after wash
We recommend you to wipe up after wash.
Especially wipe up well around guides.
Yet just little percentage, water from tap contains chlorine and it will be cause of rust
if you leave your fishing rod wet after wash.
We recommend you to wipe up from blanks, around guides then EVA grip.
If you wipe up EVA grip first fabric will be stained instantly.
So we recommend you to start wiping off from blanks then around guides.
③EVA grip become mint condition if you sand it
If you wish to make EVA mint condition, sand it with #320.
When you do that we recommend you to cover reel seat and metal parts to avoid risk of scrunching them.
Please wipe up with well wringed towel after sand it.
There is article about maintenance of EVA so please check it for more details.
■At the conclusion
Yet it is kind of long articles, we hope that this help you to give you tips of maintaining and handling
your fishing rod.
We also hope that infection spreading of corona virus will be settled down soon and every anglers in
all over the world will be able to restart fishing in future not so far.
Thank you very much for your time to read this special issue.
See you guys soon on next future article.