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SURF & DEEP
EXCALIBUR TACKLE ROCK
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EXCALIBUR TACKLE |
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This is a record of some of the articles that we have had published in Rock, Surf and Deep. It is running about 1 month behind the published articles – for obvious reasons, and is with the kind permission of the publishers – Picasso Media.
We have only included the text of the articles, mainly for those that have possibly missed some of our articles in the magazine. They are listed below with the most recent at the top.
June 2011 Namibia Tackle
April 2011 Angola Drive-in
March 2011 Reels Part 3 - A Real Drag – Lever drag Vs. Star drag
December 2010 Reels Part 2 - Reel Servicing
October 2010 Part 5 – Other Rods
September 2010 Reels Part 1 - New to Fixed Spools
August 2010 Part 2 – The Blank
July 2010 Part 1 – What is a fishing rod?
Note: Parts 3 & 4 of the ‘Rod Building’ series were never printed, as they were ‘lost’ by an earlier employee at R.S&D. At this point in time there are no plans to re-submit as they would be out of context of the original series.
As you will see, we occasionally miss some of the deadlines, and as such are not featured in every issue - possibly because we have nothing to say at that time, or we are busy with guiding or building rods – our apologies. However, what we do make clear is that these are our ‘own’ opinions, for which we offer no apology, for that is what they are – and we are all entitled to our own opinion on any matter.
We write these articles without any financial or company allegiances – as we are not sponsored by any companies to promote their products – we write on the basis of our personal experiences – only.
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June 2011
Namibia Tackle
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Angola Drive-In
Angola is possibly the last big angling adventure in Africa, whether in the south or the north. Personally, the southern desert - an extension of the Namib Desert north of the Cunune River holds the greatest potential, but also the greatest potential hazards. By tempering one’s bravado with good solid preparation and planning, you can have a safe and trouble free ‘trip of a lifetime’.
When I started in my former profession in engineering, I was advised to learn the absolute importance of the ‘6 P’s rule’, and this was translated to be “P*ss Poor Planning Perpetuates Poor Performance”, and this is never more accurate than when getting involved with a drive-in trip to southern Angola. For in the first instance we all get seriously excited by the fishing prospects, having read the articles and seen all the adventures on TV – we forget that behind all these events there are professional guides that have done all the hard work of getting the anglers not only safely there, but also onto fish – what you do not hear reported are the horror stories, poor fishing, vehicles stuck or broken, vehicles lost to the sea, vehicles overturned or people injured.
A couple of years ago I was asked to prepare a trip to take a group up for the fishing, and gracefully declined as they were generally an elderly group, all basically fit and healthy – with the oldest about 86. When I was asked why, I pointed out that there would be times that if something went wrong with the health of one of the old chaps, we would be about 3 full days away from proper medical facilities – 2 days hard driving across the desert to Lubango, then hopefully onto a flight down to a hospital in J’burg – not a realistic risk to take. The isolation of the location is partly why it has such awesome fishing, but it is a huge factor in your planning.
Firstly there is your vehicle, and this is a serious issue, it is your sole means of transport, and groups should travel in at least a 3 car group, so that what ever happens to one vehicle, the contents can be shared out into another couple of cars. Just last June, a new wreck appeared on the Skeleton Coast just north of Tigres Bay, the travellers mis-timed the rising tide, were trapped against the miles of huge dunes with no way out, and they then found out that cars do not work very well under water. They all got out safely, and eventually flew back home to South Africa – though their car is now part of the coastline a Langebann. All the guides know that the tides and information about tides can be up to a couple of hours askew.
Your vehicles are going to be going over some seriously tough terrain, and probably loaded well beyond the original manufacturers recommendation. All the vehicles need to have been seriously serviced before a trip, and even then the ‘roads’ in Angola will probably find a weak point. To call some sections ‘roads’ is a gross overstatement, as they are at times little more than game trails that some fool followed with a car, and there will be sections that you will probably only travel about 15 km in an hour – a hard road! The wisdom of strengthen springs is well worth considering, as is raising the ride height of the vehicle.
The next aspect of vehicle preparation is fuel capacity, and the probable fact that once across the border you will be some 6-800km from the nearest fuel, so having extended tanks or a huge reserve of ‘Jerry Cans’, is your next decision. I have seen what would be considered a ‘mathematical improbability’ occur with electrical fuel pumps on reserve tanks, when on one trip, the pump from the reserve tank failed a second time, after we had installed a new one ‘in the field’. To say that Angola is tough on vehicles is perhaps an understatement, it will find every weakness, and cause the failure of that component.
The last aspect of vehicle preparation is to get all the documents in place, Police Clearance, Registration Documents as well as anything else pertaining to the vehicle. When you get to the border crossing, you will have to go through the procedure for temporary import of that vehicle into Angola, and that needs absolutely every bit of paper that vehicle ever had with it. Get this bit wrong, and you trip ends in Namibia.
A quick word about trailers, forget the idea, they very rarely make the journey unscathed, and when or if you finally get to the beach, they are a pain, as soft sand is a nightmare for the vehicles alone, let alone towing a trailer. One aspect of trailers is Angolan road law, certain lengths and widths have to have special clearance, and when dealing with a non-English speaking Angolan Traffic Policeman about the legality of your trailer, and it not having those documents, then you have another problem. Trailers also have to have a temporary vehicle import document – so be warned.
On the matter of road laws, it is your responsibility to know all the Angolan laws of the highway, ignorance is no defence, and as you will probably be routing through Lubango, you will be passing through several vehicle checkpoints and passing through a very large city of near 3 million inhabitants. It really is like driving into the unknown, and it is not a place to start getting on the wrong side of the road – Oh yes, they drive on the right hand side as well.
The next stage of your planning is to organise for the welfare of your party, food, water and camping equipment. Work on the basis that you will not be able to get anything that you have forgotten in Angola, and certainly unlikely at the coastal towns – anything you do find should be a pleasant surprise. This lack of availability equally applies to fuel, at time the garages have petrol, but no diesel, then up the road, there might be a garage with diesel and no petrol – we have experienced both situations on trips and worse – garages with only one fuel, and no fuel at the next garage.
Planning your trip around 10 days in Angola is probably a comfortable maximum, as you will need all the meat stored in a freezer, and what little space is left after that lot, you can slip in some bait and ice for your drinks. The obvious dry goods for food, as well as cooking equipment should be kept to a minimum, as the pile that you are starting to set aside for packing is starting to grow. Fuel for cooking is the next issue, and if you go down the wood route be prepared for the most unfriendly materials for packing that you will ever meet – wood is a pain, consider charcoal.
The next element for the welfare of your group is going to be water, there isn’t any in the desert, and very little to be had at the garages that you might come across, so you are going to have to consider water management, as it is potentially a heavy and bulky item to have to carry – and consider this as even more weight for your vehicle. Then there is the inevitable cans and bottles of drink for your crew, another packing consideration, to join the growing pile of 10 days of supplies.
The final welfare items of tents, sleeping bags and spare clothes, need to be considered carefully, as the desert where you will be camping is prone to being windy, as well as seriously cold overnight. Getting tents pegged down against the wind is not an option in the desert, it just doesn’t work, so you might want to consider some of those ‘2 Second’ tents, they are quick and light, though rarely accommodate the number of people the manufacturers estimate – think they use midgets when sizing their tents, but that said they are stable in the wind once you have your sleeping bag and clothes bag inside. They are quick to erect and dismantle, and are light.
Clothes need to be balanced out against the likelihood that your vehicle is now running out of space, the pile of essentials like food, water, drink, freezer, spare tyres, tool boxes, braii gear, charcoal, tents, sleeping bags, etc is growing to be a small mountain. Light weight layers, is the system best employed, it covers the eventuality of the cold weather, as well as being small in the packing.
A thought that might occur to you at this stage in the planning is to stuff everything up on the roof rack, well have a little rethink! Packing your vehicle so that it is potentially top heavy will certainly not be well received when you start to drive some of the sections of the route, especially in the desert – this is usually how the stories of overturned vehicles come about. Sure use a roof rack, but be very conscious of the weight, pack it with bulky, but light weight items, like sleeping bags and tents, not heavy stuff like fuel, water and spare tyres or wood.
Having assembled all your essential equipment, and all the stuff that you feel might just be needed and heaped it alongside your vehicle, you have quite a task in front of you – just to get all of it in, let alone in some semblance of order. For now you need to consider that you will have a number of nights that you will be bush camping en route to the beach, and packing so that you do not have to empty the entire car every night might be considered a blessing. We have found that square and rectangular items are the easiest way to go, and all round items should be kept to a minimum, though some essentials will be encountered, like tyres, gas bottles, etc. Rectangular boxes are best, as they can be stacked easily, and then tied down with some sort of order. What I am really looking for now is a square kettle, the standard round one we use is one of the biggest pains to pack.
Finally, having sorted and packed all the essentials for your welfare on the trip, you can now see what space you have left for the prime purpose of the trip – fishing! That space is not going to be a lot, and amongst the group, a little planning and co-ordination is now the best route. At most you will need a few sinkers each, then end tackle for bait and spinning, then reels and rods. By sharing tackle boxes, and rationalising the best weight rods to be taken, then a lot of overlap can be avoided. Like if everyone is using rods that cast 6oz sinkers, then a selection of sinkers, wired and plain can be used, as can spoons and poppers. However, if the group s mixed on their tackle with 5oz, 6oz and 7oz tackle, then the pile of weights, spoons and poppers has just gone up threefold.
Apart from the occasional use of light weight spinning rods, or as the ‘new’ market would describe – dropshot; most of your fishing will be in ocean surf, whether spinning or bait, and you will find that this will most certainly be the prime tackle you will reach for. There may well be members of your group that want to deliberately target the big sharks and skates, let then take just a small amount of tackle for that, but not enough for a whole season!
Earlier we mentioned the space in your freezer for bait, and it probably became apparent that there would not be much space in the freezer left after all your meat. A suggestion here is to use squid bodies (chokka), as it can be packed into individual day packs, especially if it is laid flat and vacuum packed, it doesn’t take up much room, and it works for the majority of the fishing you will be doing. For those looking to go after sharks, they have to make the decision on whether they wish to eat, or take bait – the other option is to catch your bait, then the packing isn’t an issue.
While discussing fish, and possibly bringing home some of what you catch, an aspect of your journey through Namibia might well decide this issue. Your route will certainly take you across the ‘Vet Line’, where there are inspectors controlling the movement of meat. They have the right to inspect all freezers travelling south, and they are well versed in the Namibian Fisheries law, so filleting all your catch and or, not having a Namibian Fisheries License could well find your trip taking a diversion to some local court to pay fines, as well as having your ‘illegal’ fish confiscated. While in the planning stage of your trip, it might be prudent to plan on enjoying some of your catch to supplement the meal regime that you are planning – a couple of nights of fish braii certainly saves you space in the freezer, as well as weight – or might be the freezer space you need for your bait.
The standard tackle for Angola is pretty much down to one of the 4-6oz three piece travel rods with options on multiple tips, plan to use the heavy tip for bait, and possibly the medium tip for spinning, and you will not be too far from where you need to be. For reels, we personally recommend the new Fin-Nor range, with the 20 size offering the best for spinning and bait usage. The 30 series is fine for sharks, but will need to be teamed up with a heavier rod, like a 6-8oz series. From a rod builder’s perspective, and how many of each model we get to fix, we would recommend Blue Marlin, as of the others we get to see too many in the workshop for repairs. The essence of the trip to Angola, is on ‘minimalist reliability’.
A few obvious items that we haven’t mentioned for planning as they really should be obvious are a good jack, a spare, spare wheel (2), a comprehensive first aid kit, a satellite phone for emergencies, and a GPS. One of the aspects of the current dependency on technology, is that we are lead to believe it is totally accurate, and various salesmen will testify with their life that this model is accurate to within a hairs’ breadth of a metre, and that the maps system is the very latest and equally the most accurate. Well, ‘mother nature’ and the dynamic forces of the Benguella Current haven’t been plugged into that technology, as the photo shows. We were travelling in the car on dry beach when this photo was taken – yet the technology clearly indicates that we in fact needed a boat! The distance from the car to the beach ‘on the map’ was over 500 metres – it could easily have been the other way!!! Technology is a great thing, but please be aware that it does have its shortcomings, added to that the fact that the coastline in southern Angola is equally as dynamic and constantly changing as the coastline in Namibia. Just that in Namibia, there will certainly be more people to get you out of trouble than in the desert section of southern Angola. This type of dependency on the ‘technology’ is what gets most folks into difficult situations in Angola – believing that the layout of the beach line is stable – it isn’t, every trip it is different.
When all said and done, trips to southern Angola are not for the light hearted, and even for serious folks, the planning and subsequent execution are a very major issue. There are professional guides that will lead parties up there, and they are not just doing it for fun, but have wealth of knowledge that make the trips seem easy. They have been through the mill of all the potential problems, they will provide you with packing lists and preparations for your trip, that might as well be written in stone – they have been through all the ‘good ideas’, and worked them down to the minimum. The ‘trip of a lifetime’ should be enjoyed, not become a horror story that you tell at family gatherings, and as part of the planning you should consider the wisdom of paying a guide to assist – many have had trips without guides, and a good number have had a good time, but there remain those that didn’t. Ultimately, it is your choice.
Lastly, since writing this article, the area between the Cunune River and Tigres Bay has been absorbed into the Iona National Park, and as such is now ‘off limits’ to visiting fishermen. It is best to plan a trip to include the area south of Tombua, but limit your range to the Langebann area, though be cautious of the tidal constraints of fishing with your back to the high dunes.
What we haven’t discussed are the legal requirements for folks getting into Angola, these vary extremely, and to give accurate information would take another article. Just in closing – remember the ‘6 P’s Rule’.
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A real drag – Lever Drag vs. Star Drag - Reels Part 3
The third part in this series on reels, deals with taking a different view
point on different types of reels.
With our ever present quest for more performance from our fishing tackle, we look at the latest rod blanks, reels and end tackle, but one thing that we regularly fail to consider are techniques being used in other disciplines of angling – and how they might benefit ‘our’ discipline. An example of this is lever drag reels, and the fact that previously they have been considered the sole domain of big game fishing, and particularly trolling for big, high speed fish. How might this type of reel feature in say – surf fishing or even deep jigging.
Firstly, a little about lever drag and star drag reels. They differ in that the star drag has a stack of alternating steel and fibre washers actuated by pressure applied from the star shaped collar, via threaded screw; the lever drag is a single large fibre washer pressured by a ground steel plate actuated by a cam attached to the lever. The advantages and disadvantages of both systems are in the economies of manufacturing, and the precision of the manufacturing machinery, while cost has always been an issue, there are now comparable priced lever drag reels to those star drag reels that we use in the surf – yet their performance is stellar in comparison.
So, what are the advantages, well because of the lever drag reels apply drag pressure through a cam, the increase in drag pressure can be very smooth, precise and incremental, additionally, they can be pre-set to a specific pressure at say the ‘strike’ setting, that is infinitely repeatable. The manufacturing process requires that the single main plate of the drag assembly is ground to precision levels of smoothness. What this means is that once set up properly, with a spring balance, the drag at ‘strike’ will remain at a given pressure – say 8kgs. The reel can be put away, and the next trip, the ‘strike’ drag setting will still be 8kg, so we now have a precise setting ability that we can achieve for every fishing trip with that reel, we can rely on it to perform to that setting and with regard to the line we are using know that we cannot break it through the reel. Get a big fish, push the drag up to strike, and we know exactly what pressure we are putting on the fish. Additionally, beyond the ‘strike’ setting we have a further progressive increase of drag pressure that we can apply, probably right up to the possible breaking strain of the line we are using – all dependant on the initial settings.
In a star drag, none of the repeatability of setting can ever be achieved, we just keep tightening until we are feeling happy with the setting, regardless of the value of that setting. We can over tighten it all to exceed the breaking strain of the line, and then the probability of losing the fish is high. The advantage of the star drag is that it is less affected by water submersion, and in a wading situation can be much more effective. They are easy to use, and relatively easy to maintain; and despite having many more moving parts than a comparable lever drag reel, are cheap to produce. However, through the generally accepted production methods, the stamped components of the drag are prone to being less than perfectly flat, and thus prone even within the range of the same model, subject of variability. Drags with very slightly curved steel plates will be a lot less effective than perfectly flat plates, as the pressure applied within the drag assembly will be uneven – resulting in a less than smooth release of line. This production problem has seen various ‘after-sales’ companies producing precision components that greatly enhance the performance of the original star drag system, whether it be in better composition of drag washers or smooth ground drag plates.
Onto another huge difference between the two types, and that is the potential for spool speed, and this has a direct relationship to the distances that we can achieve with our casting. The spool is released mechanically from the internal mechanism in a star drag reel, but still is reliant on a ‘friction free’ environment between the spool spindle and the hollow section of the pinion gear. Invariably oil or grease gets into this area, whether by design through maintenance, or accident internally within the reel. Additionally to this area for friction, there is the matter that the spool is only spinning on 2 bearings. Lever drag reels however releases the spool by bringing it to a position of zero drag, and the spindle is invariably spinning on up to 4 bearings. What this translates to is the fact that lever drag reels can have a much lower resistance to spinning up to the desired speeds, than the star drag reels – to the extent that some folks that have tried venturing into this area in the past have declared that lever drag reels are far too fast for surf fishing application.
One company that has been dealing with this issue, and has indeed been copied by several of the larger tackle organisations, is AVET, they have been building what amount to be precision engineered reels for angling for a good number of years, and part of their range is dedicated to casting. They produce a series that are extremely fast spinning, and have a setting on the reel, not just for free spool, but just above that, which was designed as the ‘casting’ setting. It introduces a small amount of drag to slightly slow the reel down to more manageable speeds for casting. While this in the earlier models was fine for those that could eventually master the awesome speed of the reels, it was seen as a disadvantage to the greater market, and hence the introduced their new MAG series. A small dial on the ‘non-handle’ side of the reel, allows the caster to dial up exactly what amount of magnetic induced spool speed braking they need. The AVET reels have now been copied by a number of the major tackle manufacturers, whether they have the precision of the AVET is another issue, but there are now comparable casting lever drag reels available.
The advantages of the lever drag reels in a surf fishing environment are that much greater spool rotation speeds can be attained, which given the advances in rod blank designs we are seeing, is a welcome development. Rods are becoming more and more complex in their composition in our continual quest for more distance, and as a direct result of this the tip speed of the rods is growing exceedingly fast. Combine this with improved casting techniques that introduce even more power into the cast, and we end up with the potential that the ‘launch speed’ that the rods can generate is greater than our traditional star drag reels can accommodate. Effectively reels are holding back the casts, not the design or power of the rods.
We have discussed in a previous article that a reel will need to get up to about 15,000 rpm very quickly to potentially accommodate a 150 metre cast. To increase the distance further the maximum speed potential of the reel needs to increase much further than that rotational speed. However, due to the earlier mentioned points of internal friction within a star drag reel, we end up with a point of decreasing returns, as the better rods that we use, will be hampered by the ability of the reels to spin. Even the long serving Shimano TLD series have been used on the Namibian coast for sharking – and to great effect, though they do need some modification to remove the top brace, to allow sufficient access for thumb pressure during the cast, but they were getting the baits well away from the beach – and have the power in the drag to get the sharks up on the beach.
One very important factor that applies to both styles of reel, lever drag and star drag, is the fact that once set, a reel will automatically increase the drag pressure on the line, as the level of the line goes down – a simple matter of physics. We often see folks tightening drags on reels when we get hooked up to a ‘big one’, the fish runs off against the drag setting that we originally felt comfortable with, and runs and runs. The angler gets concerned that the spool is getting empty, and pushes up the drag a little, and usually the fish responds with a further push of speed and power. The next thing that happens is a further increase in drag pressure by the angler in response to the fish, and shortly afterwards, the fish is lost, usually where one of the line connections are made, a knot or other join – though sometimes even the line breaks.
So, what is actually happening? The drag pressure that we set on the line when the reel is full, is actually a resistance on the spool shaft, and that in turn is relative to the line level on the spool ( see diagram). The fish hooks up and runs, and the line level reduces say by 50% of the original spool diameter, and at this point the relationship between the shaft and the line leaving the reel has decreased, but the power of the drag on the shaft has remained the same; end result is that in fact the drag pressure on the line leaving the spool has doubled!!! Looking at the diagram we see that the leverage effect is the culprit, and it is only as a result of the angler’s mistake that the drag is further increased potentially well beyond the capacity of the line connections or knots.
The response of the fish to the further increase in drag pressure is pretty natural, if someone starts to slow you down, you would respond with an increase in effort to overcome that extra restraint – wouldn’t you? With the angler responding further, by another increase in drag pressure can only result in one of two things happening, either the fish will stop, or the connection will break.
The essence of what is happening with a drag system is that unlike a bicycle brake which acts on the rim of the wheel, the braking effect is acting on the actual spindle of the spool. A numerical example might be that we set the drag on a reel with 20kg line at about 1/3rd of that strength, say 6kg of line pressure with the reel at full. We have tied knots in the line, and even the best and carefully tied knots will yield a decrease in the actual strength of the line within the knot of 15%, so the strength of the original 20kg line ‘within the knot’ is only 17kg.
The fish strikes and runs, at the spool half empty point, the drag pressure on the line has increased to 12kg, and all is still working fine until the angler panics at the potential line loss – a further small manual drag increase to say 15kg pressure results in the fish running further, so the spool level goes down more, and what was just a short while ago 15kg of pressure is now rapidly approaching the 17kg figure. Any further increase in drag pressure at this point or further reduction in line level will automatically exceed the strength of the line within the knot – result - the line will break!!!! And this is all happening at just over 1/2 spool distance.
In the same example as above, if we had avoided the additional angler intervention, at 1/2 spool level, the drag would have stayed at 12kg. When the spool got down to as far as 1/4 full, the drag would have still managed to increase to 18kg, however, we wouldn’t have induced the panic in the fish, and in all probability it would have slowed by the naturally occurring increase in drag pressure, and probably not stripped the reel as far as 1/4 full, and then the line wouldn’t have broken. Sure there are going to be times when we do hook up fish that run way beyond 1/2 spool level, and the thing to do at these times, is to actually back the drag off a small amount – not increase it! This is why in big game fishing circles most drags are set at 25% of the line breaking strain at full reel level, it allows the angler every confidence that they will never break the line with just the reel physics.
So, what pressure is your line set at on your star drag reel? Perhaps it is time to consider the options of a reel with more repeatable and finite control, or are you going to have the strength of character to actually back the drag off, when the next big one gets your spool down to 1/2 level.
A recent big fish story with a different type of reel, a fixed spool that had been set up with a high loaded drag for Spotted Gully sharks, actually caused the loss of a seriously large Kob, because the drag was overly tightened – way too much drag. The angler however, might have been justified in the heavy drag setting, as two days before he had landed the new (pending ratification) Namibian record ‘Spotty’ at 43.5kg.
In deep jigging, lever drag reels offer a number of advantages over the accepted tackle of powerful fixed spool reels, they offer better line retrieve ratios, often have the facility to offer two speed operation, as well as powerful drag systems that are smooth and a delight to use. The drags’ operation allows for the fish to run, but ultimately keeps the angler in control, and when joined up with a two speed system, gives the angler real power to defeat fish coming from depth, they are what is used very successfully in a good number of locations around the world for deep fishing. Worth a thought?
Drags are an important factor in our fishing success, and are not an aspect that needs to be viewed with too heavy a hand, but with ‘control’.
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Reels & Servicing – Reels Part 2
A horror story of deceit and exploitation stirred this article, though it has been a long time in rising to the surface, for the issue has been going on for some time.
A long standing and valued customer came into the shop with his reel looking for some advice and resolution to a problem. Sitting in the palm of his hand was a top line reel from one of the popular manufacturers, that had been turned from a high speed casting reel into something akin to a collection of damaged metal parts that would probably not cast 100 metres – despite anyone’s best efforts. The brand new reel, that had cost several thousand Rand, was scratched and making loads of noise, and this had come about from a ‘service’ by a so-called “*!%$#“ (insert manufacturers’ name) expert. That ‘expert’ had deceitfully exploited the customer’s lack of knowledge into spending money on a total waste of time.
A slight diversion to the story, but relevant, is that coming from Europe, where 90% of all sea anglers frequently carry out all their own reel servicing. It is with some surprise that folks in southern Africa regard the internal workings of a modern fishing reel as a source of ‘Pandora’s Box’, yet those same folks will happily field strip and service their firearms after every excursion into the bush. Gone are the days of reels that exploded springs and washers as soon as you took off a side cover. Good quality modern reels are thoughtfully designed and manufactured to firstly provide long service with a little ‘after fishing’ care, and secondly to be easy to maintain in top performing condition, with a little basic mechanical knowledge.
Back to our distraught customer, who wanted his reel to perform like it did before its so-called ‘service’, and would we demonstrate how to maintain his reel, as he was tired of so called ‘experts’. Well, we went round to the workshop, where we have a clean bench, and we dismantled the entire reel, removed probably 50 grams of excess grease, and cleaned all the components, and re-assembled with small amounts of grease and oil, where necessary! First spin of the reel after the re-assembly and it spun for nearly 25 seconds on free spool, and silently!!!
The core problem goes back to the older reels that folks were used to using on the beach, that had bronze bushes in place of bearings, whereas the modern reels almost suffer from the over use of ball bearings – there are so many in some reels. In the old ‘bush’ reels, you could put as much grease into the housing and it would not affect the performance of the reel, and the excess grease usually found its way to the small steel springs and protected them from the ravages of salt water – so grease – in excess was a good thing. However, those reels were not looking to spin at rotation speeds in excess of 12-15,000 rpm, today’s reels are, and the ball bearing races need to have an easy passage in getting them to spin at those speed, not gummed up with black ‘tractor grease’!!!
The modern ball bearing is designed to spin freely with a modicum of lubricant, that allows the balls inside the races to rotate freely in a lubricated area for a relatively short space of time (the time of one cast), and as such do not build up huge heat problems as the stress period is so short. So, the lubricant has just to allow the balls to rotate within the race with minimal friction, and this is best achieved through the use of a little ‘light oil’.
The term ‘light oils’ is now subject to a considerable debate, and depending on what the actual angler wants from his reel, as to which light oil would be best for them, in terms of end performance of the reel. There are numerous oils available, all of various viscosities and other properties, and to this end we have researched the matter to a degree of personal satisfaction, and have now found new oils that we use on all our personal reels, as well as those that we service for clients. This oil is a direct import, though we did in the past use a product from Europe called ‘Rocket Fuel’, but we have found something that we think is seriously faster – ‘Liquid Lightening’. A reel with the new oil needs to be handled very carefully, as the spool speed increase is amazing – the bearings appear to be nearly frictionless. We, (Excalibur Tackle) jointly import the product with Swakop Sports in Swakopmund from SALT Pty, in Europe, we are already looking at another of their products that is even faster that the standard ‘Liquid Lightening’! Currently, we are getting a 10-15% increase in casting distances with the new oil, we will have to wait and see what the even faster oil offers.
Our personal policy on servicing reels is to strip, clean, re-lubricate every thing, and leave the reel as fast as we can make it, working on the principle that you can always slow a reel down through the use of appropriate braking systems. The main concern are the spool bearings (usually 2) which are cleaned out thoroughly with benzene, thoroughly dried and then oiled with just one drop of the appropriate oil, the spindles of the spool are also lightly oiled, to aid ease of fitment, and spinning within the pinion gear. Drive shaft bearings get the same treatment, but they are not subject to the same high rotational speeds, but the oil does the right job with those as well. We use a dry graphite grease on the drag washers and the two gears, but sparingly – such that after two or three turns all the excess is wiped away. A modicum of silicone grease is used on the anti-reverse clip, and a small amount of light machine oil (3 in 1 type) is used under the spool release mechanism, and that is about it!
Onto less frequently used reels, like ‘lever drags’ and ‘fixed spool’ reels, here the same guidelines work equally well, except that on the lever drag reels, the drag washers are kept spotlessly free of all lubricants, otherwise all the same rules apply. On fixed spool reels, a little extra grease is applied to the main shaft as it exits the main reel housing, as this section is vulnerable to a fair amount of wear, and a point where water and grit/sand could get into the mechanism.
One of the other exceptions that has come to us, is the use of reels for ‘wading’, when inevitably the reel is going to get totally filled with water, here the same procedure of a normal service is followed, with the recommendation that the reel be stripped and serviced the day after the ‘wading’, as despite the drain holes that are built into modern reels, there always remains some salt water within the main body, which needs cleaning out. Packing ‘wading’ reels with more grease just traps more water, and the excess grease invariably finds its way to block the drain holes. You will not stop water ingress into a ‘wading’ reel, so accept that it is going to be there, then deal with it. Additionally, the extra grease will do little except slow the reel down during the cast, so you will need to wade a further 20-30 metres out, just to overcome the reels’ poor performance.
Post fishing, regardless of wading or general fishing, all reels should be fully washed off with clean water to dilute and clean accumulated salt and dust or sand, then left to dry naturally. There are various protection sprays on the market, but we have yet to find one that is little more than ‘aerosoled’ paraffin with a few other additives. We don’t know whether the fish like the taste of paraffin on the line, but would rather not take that risk.
As an external corrosion protection we use a simple domestic furniture polish that contains silicone, a quick spray and wipe down before you put the reel away does wonders. Now, some of the salty water and dust will be reluctant to stick to the outside of the reel, which in turn makes final cleaning so much easier. Additionally, the silicone does not taint the line, and there might be a discussion on whether it makes the line faster through the guides in a cast, but that would be a very limited value discussion, if you can actually go down the route of getting the reel to spin properly in the first place, then line speed through the guides is irrelevant!
The last thing that is very relevant to the modern casting reel is the braking system. It is not the knob that tightens onto the spool spindle that sits under the handle!!!!
Most reels have a centrifugal braking system of one sort or another, though there are various magnetic and electro magnetic systems about, they are less common. The typical centrifugal system is those two bars that sit close to the spool under the left had side cover. In the box that you bought the reel, was a little bag with small plastic sleeves of different colours and sizes, the sleeves are fitted in various combinations onto the thin bars, and act as centrifugal brakes onto an outer ring (inside the left hand side cover).
Effectively, what the centrifugal brake does, is to limit the maximum rpm of the spool – to varying degrees. What they also do is allow the spool to rapidly spin up to that maximum without hindrance, thus letting the cast get away to a flying start, but not to go so fast that it is beyond the speed that the angler can control. The point here is that with just a screw driver, the individual angler can personally ‘tune’ his or her reel to suit their personal casting style and abilities, by just adding or removing large or small sleeves. The centrifugal brakes even work with just one brake block (sleeve) in place, so really fine tuning can be achieved just to suit each angler’s need.
What that knob under the handle does is slow the spool down throughout its entire range, the spool cannot accelerate up to any speed quickly. It is a little like driving your car with the hand brake on, it effects the cars’ speed throughout the entire range, and like the hand brake, it will eventually cause damage, in the cars’ instance worn out brake shoes or pads; in the fishing reel, a worn or worse – a bent spool spindle – expensive!!
So, in closing, our client got a lesson in reel maintenance, as well as a reel that would now cast superbly, and the “*!%$# expert“ lost a customer for life! All for the sake of a lot less grease and a little more oil. Amazing how actually doing less can get you more!
One item of interest with the current stock of reels, there are models that have ‘Salt’ in the name that come pre-fitted with its brake blocks, it is amazing the number of clients that can’t get these reels to work properly, and in just 60 seconds we can get it spinning faster than they can handle, just by removing those brake blocks – we then invariably have to put one brake block back in. Which brings us nicely to the point that most, if not all manufacturers ship their reels with the bearings greased, as 95% of the models that we use for casting are used in the global market as boat reels, and as such do not need high speed spool performance. So, even a brand new reel straight from the box works so much better having had the bearing treatment described above.
One final pointer, is to always store your reel with the drag fully wound off, this allows the drag washers to expand, and not take on a permanent compressed state.
We hope that this inspires folks to do their own reel servicing in future, and gain the rewards from that, rather than deal with so called ‘experts’. Long may your spools spin!
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Part 5 - Other Rods
Having gone through the process of building a surf rod, and using that as the model for all other rods, we now need to discuss some of the alternate issues concerning those rods. The characteristic that take a higher position in the design criteria.
The first obvious change from the ‘standard’ surf rod, is developing it up to the standard for large sharks, and positively consider the issues of whether ‘sliding’ is going to be a prevalent part of your fishing techniques. Rods for ‘sliding’ need length as well as a slightly more flexible tip to be best effective, yet need a reserve of power to actually fight the shark once caught - additionally, they need to be a serious distance casting rod. A common mistake here is to go for a blank designed for very heavy weight casting, and then struggle to get the real distances to best effect this technique. It is here that perhaps some of the ‘tournament’ style European blanks can come into there own, but they need to be used with more moderate sinkers – say 7oz or maximum 8oz, for fear of overloading.
On the other hand a shark rod that is going to be used just for casting big baits can become a very effective tool when we consider the option of a shorter but more powerful blank. Our current design of dedicated ‘casting’ shark rods is for a total effective length of 11 feet. This length does allow of the casting of very large baits, without the hindrance of the overly long rods, though it’s real strength of design comes once the shark is hooked. The shorter length really reduces the ‘lever effect’ that works against the angler with a longer rod, and this is one of those major decision aspects in the design of specialist rods. The angler truly has to know what they are looking for, and commit.
.Other aspects of the shark rod need to be considered, like perhaps the option of using a gimbel fitting on the bottom. Big game anglers have for years benefited from this small adaptation to their rods, as it hugely reduces strain on the angler when reeling in and fighting the fish, the only downside is that you need a gimbel rod bucket to go with the rod, but the benefits outweigh that issue. The next couple are component issues, and the first is the reel seat, ‘trigger/pistol’ type reel seats were not designed to take the kind of loads that shark fishing can place on a reel – and we get a lot of repair work associated with reel seat replacement as a result of using these type of reel seats on shark rods. We now advocate the use of Fuji boat style winch fittings, though still made of graphite for lightness, but a much stronger design.
The last component aspect is the rings, or more specifically the ring size, There is a school of thought that advocates large rings all the way up the blank to cope with the large leader knots. We however, just increase our standard progression of ring sizes up by one size only, and then use either small styles of leader knots, or in the worst cases that very large strength leaders are needed, revert to using wind-on leaders, Large rings are heavy and also resist the flexing of the blank to such a degree that the rod can nearly become un-castable. They equally kill the action that the designer has spent many hours in the design and build of the blank to achieve – than with a simple stroke, it is all wasted through using oversized rings. We did conduct a number of experiments in going down and down in the size of rings at the top of a rod, and we were quite amazed as to just how small we could get before small leader knots actually started to hinder the casts made. A last option worth considering is to upgrade the rings to a design more frequently seen on boat rods, but these while stronger are also more resistant to flexing during the cast, and thus have a down side – the choice is yours.
The next logical step here is the design of spinning rods, and their use with fixed spool reel (or coffee grinders). These are probably the widest range of rods built in the world, they cover everything from small streams up to ocean going boats and those fishing in the thundering surf, but they all have a commonality in their design. The spinning rod is designed to cast baits, or more often lures of a prescribed weight, and then fight the fish. The biggest fundamental difference is that the ring sizes need to accommodate the large coils of line coming off the fixed spool reel, with out strangling them, and thus robbing the cast of power. The use of much larger, but fewer rings is the accepted norm, though in most commercial examples the first ring is too small, and a commercial shortcut has seen the acceptance of high leg rings to appear to accommodate the coils issue. The high leg rings do little towards achieving the right result, a low ring of a larger diameter is the right way to go, a guideline might be that this ring needs to be about 2/3 the size of the spool diameter to be effective, then progressing down the sizes of following rings. The result is a smooth transition of ring sizes that went viewed down the line appear like a tunnel of rings. However, the large rings are increasingly hard to find, and they are at times quite costly – a good quality single ring for a long spinning rod might cost as much as a whole set for a multiplier rod!
The other single factor on a spinning rod is the layout of the reel seat and grip, southern African designs tend on the whole to have quite short butt sections, when much longer sections would give better casting distance and control, as the butt fits along the entire underside of the arm from the elbow to wrist. The use of lighter weight reel seats is often a mixed blessing, as the twisting forces of the longer offset of a fixed spool reel do place a lot of load onto the reel seat, it is quite important to get the bond between the reel seat and the blank as strong as possible, even if it means using carbon spacers and a larger diameter reel seat.
As to the blanks, well, it is conceivable to build a spinning rod on just about any blank, however those blanks with more of a through action tend to be the better performers, and this becomes especially relevant when we are going to use braided lines as the main line. A point here about the use of braided lines on fixed spool reels is to maintain the practice of using a casting leader of monofilament nylon – as the stretch factor irons out some of the abrupt loads that are present in casting this type of rod.
The next rods that we would like to discuss are off shore boat rods, though what applies to the offshore, equally applies to the near shore environment, but perhaps just scaled down to lower rated blanks. A lot of the offshore rods owe their design in blanks to the real heavy weights that were first used to subdue Marlin and Tuna, when used for trolling large live baits and lures. These rods were comparatively stiff, though designed for each of the designated IGFA line class, they were designed to do a specific job. The next major change in boat angling came about through ‘stand-up’ fishing, using very short rods with a softer tip action, to reduce the leverage aspect, allowing the angler to increase the pressure to bear on the fish. These rods were built on very specialist blanks, and to this day have a strong following, but are lousy for trolling, as the tips just don’t stand up to the towing load.
These two styles have both been scaled down to the lighter classes of lines, and now we have a wide variety of blanks available for boat angling with much more finesse. One of the aspects about boat fishing rods from a builders point of view is the use of stronger whipping techniques, mostly originating from the early trolling rods. That is to under whip all the rings and rollers with a full bed of thread, then to whip the ring or roller on over that thread bed. This action does stiffen the rod up locally to each ring, and is a technique that can be used on a wide variety of rods to bring some local stiffness to the design. It was originally done for strength purposes, but with today’s resins is un-necessary. In the higher classes of trolling and stand-up rods (say 80lb & 130lb) it is advisable to actually double whip the top side of the rings, as they do take an awful lot of pressure during a big game fish fight.
Components for these rods just have to be the best, as anything else will just fail. For rollers we recommend Stuart Rollers and tips, as they are the finest in the world, while for those preferring rings, then we would advocate the use of the triple leg Fuji silicone carbide rings, these have a seriously strong frame, and are not prone to flexing and shooting out the ceramic insert. Avoid overly large rings on these rods, as you will always be using wind-on leaders, so there is no benefit in going to seriously large rings.
One last aspect of boat fishing rod building is the current fashion for jigging, it is not a new system, it has been around for over 100 years. In Europe they have been using it to extract fish from deep water reefs and wrecks for the last 40 years, and it is best practiced with reasonably through action blanks that have a progressive increase in strength towards the butt end. The designs where the tip just folds over are of little real benefit, better a more sturdy blank that has more progressive back bone. For best movement of the jig or lure in deep water, it was found that rods in the 7’-0” to 7’-6” range worked best, giving maximum lure movement, while not overloading the angler with ‘leverage penalty’. This happens to be the same length that is deemed ideal for trolling rods that were effectively perfected 100 years ago, so they must have got the fundamental design right. It only goes to show that we can all benefit from looking into history for any ‘new’ designs.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading some of our thoughts on rods and rod building, we are going to do a further article later on some of the design aspects that go into our building rods specifically for ladies – but that is for another issue.
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New to Fixed Spools.
With the recent development of realistic fixed spool rods for rock and surf fishing, brought about by the Blue Marlin extending butt system; there are a number of aspects that are different from the practices normal with multipliers, especially if you are going to be using spectra type braided lines. The first distinct advantage of fixed spool reels is that they can readily be used with the braided lines, and with that some super fishing advantages. The first is obviously the thin lines will have the potential to cast a lot further, however they have a drawback in that they have little stretch to accommodate errors in casting style or fish fighting techniques.
The thin braided lines have that inherent weight advantage over traditional nylon monofilaments, which in turn allows for greater casting distances. But to achieve those distances, the set up must be absolutely right, and the first instance is to look at the rod, and how it is built. The first ring is critical, as any of the carp anglers you know will tell you, not only its size but also its position away from the reel. Fixed spool reels generate their line release through a huge coil cone, and it is this cone that needs to be ‘gently’ funnelled down the length of the rod. Too small a first ring, or one too close to the reel will effectively strangle the cast, and possibly end up in a series of crack offs, where the sinker/line has barely got away from the rod, due to the line getting caught, and subsequently knotting around the first ring.
Additional to the relationship between the reel and the first ring, the Europeans have long since found out that trying to work with a fixed spool in a low position just compounds the problems. Low position multipliers are fine, but for fixed spool reels, the further up the rod, the better they perform, so consider this when looking into various designs of these ‘new’ rods. The Europeans, while not using butt pads or rod buckets for rock and surf, have long accepted the best design as being about the distance up the rod for the reel seat to be approximately the same as the distance between your nose and the crease of your wrist, when your arm is held out to the side of your body. This distance equates well to the best hand holds to offer maximum leverage to be generated in the cast, and thus most power.
The last factor is the size of the ring, it needs to be no less than approximately 2/3rd of the diameter of the reel spool, so when looking for a rod, you already need a reel in your hand, and measured. This will soon highlight a lot of rods that have been built with first rings that are miles too small – strangled casts at best.
The next critical aspect is that the rod needs a certain amount of flexibility, as the nature of the release of a fixed spool reel is much more abrupt than that of a multiplier. This abrupt release need to be smoothed out by a rod with a softer top section, so rods built on high strength stiff blanks will do little to this end. Sure, for the dedicated competition angler, this might be a factor that could be sacrificed, but for general fishing, it is an important factor.
The abrupt nature of the casting and release system will also instantly highlight the need for a casting leader of nylon monofilament, and one that is fairly elastic, to absorb some of the shock loading. Additionally, this leader must have a couple of turns around the spool, as there are no advantages to be gained from joining the braid to the leader well up the rod. In fact this is one time that tapered casting leaders do have a distinct advantage, as the thin nature of the braid being joined to thick mono, produces a knot with a lot of internal stresses, and usually the braid wins, by cutting through the mono! The thinner tip end of a tapered leader allows for two materials of closer diameter to provide a better knot.
The next thing that you will notice for the first time, is the ‘power of transmission’ of the braid over the usual nylon monofilament that you have been using, it transmits bites like you are connected by solid wire – straight through, and powerfully. This results in possibly more fish hooked, through detecting the bite earlier, but also has a down side, as the solid connection works both ways. Drop any slack line during the fight and it will instantly be transferred to the hook connection, and possibly result in a lost fish. So, a smoother fighting style is called for that controls and eliminates the slack line situation, and possibility of lost fish. The slower and more controlled fight will also allow the rod to absorb some of the fight rather than being pulled to maximum in a ‘winching’ situation.
Having mentioned ‘winching’, it is perhaps relevant to point out that your reel choice here might be suspect, as this thing about braided lines and their lack of stretch; and this relates to the line being wound onto the reel, too much pressure, and it is conceivable to actually crush the spool. Not a problem with cast aluminium spools on multipliers, but on a fixed spool reel, the spool is substantially hollow, and thus not as strong – a point well worth considering when choosing a reel. An alternative is to pre-load the reel with a reasonable amount of monofilament nylon, to act firstly as a cushion to any crushing, and secondly to bring the spool to a level that will put the braid that you load, right close to the upper lip of the spool, at + or- 2mm from the lip. This accurate loading of the spool with the right distance of monofilament first, may actually require that you load the reel backwards, braid first, then top load the monofilament, just to get everything exactly right, then un-spool the lot, and load back on the reel the right way round. This is particularly relevant if you are looking to put the full 300 metres of braid onto the reel, and not leave the last 50 metres on the spool in your tackle bag – never to be used again.
One last factor that has yet to become an issue with those using braid as their main line, and it will come, especially in close fishing situations where numerous anglers are all into the same school of fighting fish; is that of burn off. The burn off will occur as soon as two or perhaps more lines cross with running fish – and those using nylon will come out the worse, as the thin braid will slice through the nylon with almost no hesitation. The lost fish in this situation will lead to some seriously frayed tempers – though not as frayed as when two or more braided lines get tangled – then only a sharp knife will solve the resultant knots.
There are a host more design issues and fishing issues associated with the combined use of braided lines and fixed spool reels in rock and surf fishing, and as time moves forward and the system gains acceptance these will become apparent, or we will take serious note of what is happening in this field in Europe, as to date they have become pretty much the masters in the field of distance fishing with fixed spool reels. The designs of reels will probably undergo a serious review to give us designs capable of delivering the big distances that we are always looking for, as well as a controlled evolution in rod designs to cope with the very specific needs of the fixed spool reels.
Though we have been continually chasing design improvements in our multiplier rods, and seen only part of what is truly available, we will probably see tremendous leaps forward in the coming 12 months in the fixed spool rod designs, but it will probably take the reel manufacturers a while longer to respond. At a recent tackle trade show, amongst the 100’s of fixed spool reels on display, there were probably only 2 that would come close for distance surf fishing.
When all said and done however, the prospects for this locally new system of surf fishing are exciting, and at the end of it all, it will only be better for the sport; through more fish caught, especially by those that have yet to master the multiplier. The tackle is out there, it is now just up to you to adapt to a new technique, and try for yourself – we have, and have seen the results.
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Part 2. - The Blank.
In the first part of this series we discussed aspects of the surf rod for
general all round use, and some of the compromises in the design for a variety
of anglers and their physical stature. Part of that was one of the biggest
mistakes – which is to ‘over gun’ one’s self with
a rod too powerful to be used effectively. If you were to speak to an experienced
angler he, or she might give you an honest opinion on this, and admit that
we have all made this mistake – we freely do, but then as rod builders,
we can rectify that mistake for ourselves. For most folks it is a costly
mistake!
For our normal ‘surf rod’, we need to be honest with ourselves about what we are going to be catching. Sure we would all love to be hooked into 20kg Kob or Stenbras every time we go to the coast, but in reality we get more fish in the 3-10kg range than bigger fish. So, why not aim to place that factor into the design equation, rather than the bigger fish – we can always fight the bigger fish for a bit longer and with a lighter touch, and still successfully land it. Realism into the design, not wishful thinking.
The same realism applies to the actual casting performance of not only the blank, but more importantly the angler!!! While there are a few seriously good casters out on the beach, most of us only aspire to the distances that those guys can cast. This is not to say that we shouldn’t look at a rod built on a blank that can cast to 200 metres or more, but it must equally suit the purpose that we are looking for. Here lies another of those big mistakes that are made when buying a rod – the rods’ casting potential.
A comparison with Formula 1 motor racing to highlight this point would be; just because Michael Schumaker won a number of world titles driving a Ferrari – doesn’t mean that any other driver will perform equally as well in the same car. And you certainly won’t become the next Michael Schumaker, just because you have bought a Ferrari!
There are currently two different design concepts for surf fishing blanks – both coming from different directions; due mainly to the local conditions and market preferences. The southern African design is of large diameter, thin wall construction of mainly one piece rods; that have come about because of the general lack of portability problems – we can carry one piece rods on the front or top of our vehicles. Though the more recent development of 2 or 3 piece rods has come about, it has come through from those original large diameter designs.
The European style of designs started off with a portability problem, and they are still limited to 8 foot sections as a maximum; as well as coming from a design environment that was already building multi section, long freshwater rods. And hence they have continued down the route of smaller diameter, but thicker wall construction; with most being 2 or 3 piece to start with – not as an adaptation of the original design.
Neither of the design styles are wrong – both are correct for their environment and market place. However, the fact that in European waters they are generally casting smaller baits over clean ground, and to much greater distances – saw their development go a different direction. While in southern Africa, we cast larger baits into rough ground, but due to better fish populations ~ we do not have to cast so far as our European counterparts. That is not to say that there aren’t occasions when a bait punched out to 150 metres +, won’t be the only one to pick up that prowling Kob.
However, we are not suggesting that there isn’t a place for European blanks in the southern African marketplace – we do in fact build a couple of rods on a very specific design of European blank – but they are quite specialist, and not designed for the general market. They are more reserved for the accomplished casters that can actually get the rods to work properly. Avoid the Ferrari/Schumaker syndrome – honestly with yourself into the design.
One of the factors in blank design that we have been working with during the past couple of years – and it applies to nearly all casting rod situations, is the move away from single strength carbon cloths. Carbon fibre blanks started in southern Africa with 24 tonne resin impregnated carbon fibre cloths, and then moved through to 35 tonnes cloths; with a more recent retrograde steps to 30 tonne cloths as a cost saving exercise. While in Europe they been through this design evolution, and progressed onto mixing of various grades of strength cloths distributed along the blank in different places, according to where strength or flexibility were needed, with additional sections even being augmented with very specific cloths like Kevlar – for real strength. They are also not adverse to changing the taper of the blank in different sections to either add strength or flexibility – all changes to gain increased performance from the blank.
We currently have a couple of these hybrid cloth designs that we are using as our core products and within that range we have identically rated blanks – as to their casting weights, that have taper variations to produce more or less ‘top end’ performance – according to the strength of the angler and their casting style and ability. Within this scheme we can now offer a pair of near identical looking rods that both perform with the same sinker weight, but one for the ‘power caster’, the other for the normal caster. The end result is that we now have a range of blanks that have consistently exceeded the combined casting and fishability performance of any of the single strength cloth blanks currently available in the region.
This recognition of our southern African designed blanks has not come about through the tried and tested – ‘hold and shake’ method of testing – that we have all seen in shops, but actually putting a reel and sinker on the rod & making a cast or two - dozen. Test casting rods is a very important factor when deciding on a new rod, as only in an accurately marked out casting court can the angler actually see the true casting performance of a rod – not some arbitrary guess/estimate of distance cast. None of us would buy a car without test driving it first, nor would we buy a pair of shoe without trying them on and walking around – so why are we happy to buy a casting rod without test casting it????
Carrying our change to hybrid cloth design further we have found that they offer much improve bite detection, but the real improvement comes in the fight characteristics. The slightly softer tip sections allow for more immediate connection with the fish, and quick lunges and turns by the fish are quickly absorbed by the progressive strength increase that occurs down the length of the blank, as the power increases through the transition section.
One real pain currently is the use of the term ‘HMG’, which we find to be the best possible way to confuse the whole issue of rod blanks, their material and possible benefits or the lack of. ‘HMG’ is from our point of view a pure salesman’s ploy to use numbers to sell more products. Haven’t the Bass fishermen all been down the line of ‘IM’ rated rods, just to make sure they buy a new one? A line of questioning about ‘HMG’ might be as follows:
What material is it ‘higher’ than?
What is ‘modulus’?
Isn’t ‘graphite’ what we usually find in pencils and some
lubricants?
If you can get 3 answers that convince you that the chap does honestly know what he is talking about, then that might be a blank worth considering. However, we have already described the original carbon cloths as 24 tonne, then 35 tonne, and more recently 30 tonne strength, but none have described the ‘tensile modulus’, just the tensile strengths. So, a last question might be: “Is this ‘new ‘HMG’ stronger or weaker than say a 35 tonne cloth blank?” – Confused, well that is where they want you, so that you will believe the ‘new’ materials are better, when in fact it is just a ‘new’ label on an already existing material, that some blank builders have been using for years.
The real answer is in fact, that ‘modulus’ relates to the stiffness of the material, though like all things in life, when you increase the stiffness/modulus, the strength goes down. So, one final question to the salesman might be: “Are the new ‘HMG’ rods weaker than earlier ‘non-HMG’ rods?”
In conclusion, whether a particular blank is ‘HMG’, or ‘T53’ or any other denomination, is basically irrelevant, as ultimately it is how the rod will actually perform when used in a given set of circumstances, which is why we tend not to go into long technical discussions about the composition of the blanks we use – we just ask folks to cast them and feel the difference.
The last aspect of rod/blank choice, and one that is a real intangible, is the aspect of comfort. It is only through test casting a particular rod that this factor can be determined – it is a very real factor, and has much to do with the length, weight and build of the rod, as any single performance factor.
In the next part of this series will start to look at the first steps towards the actual building of a rod; and elaborate on some of the small aspects that will ultimately go to making that dream rod. We will not be describing all the secrets that go into building ‘Excalibur’ rods, but we will certainly be letting a few of the more salient ‘build secrets’ out of the box.
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Part 1 - What is a fishing rod?
We would like to develop this series of articles through the various stages of building a rod, and use this as an example of how to select a rod for your desired purpose, even when looking for a ‘factory built’ rod, the parameters are the same; just that you have to accept the choice in certain aspects has already been decided by the original rod designer. However, the questions and answers are still fundamentally the same; it is in some of these original factory aspects that the custom built rod will become more suited to the customers needs – whether you get the rod built by a custom rod builder or undertake the task yourself..
So, what is a fishing rod??? And as this publication embraces all aspects of salt water fishing, let us confine our thoughts to just fishing in ‘the salty stuff’ – though do not let this close your mind to fishing systems that are used in environs that haven’t had the salt added. Some very salient design improvements have come through from freshwater rod designs.
Firstly, irrespective of whether you are afloat or ashore, the rod holds the line away from the angler, it hopefully detects a bite from a passing fish, and then aids the angler in setting the hook. Having done these couple of things, it then starts to work against us!!! The length of the rod is a serious lever working against the angler – as we fight the fish the ‘negative leverage’ is in some cases significant. Lastly, for those not afloat, the rod needs to assist in casting the prescribed weight and bait or lure to positions where we hope to encounter the fish. All sounds fairly straight forward and simple – doesn’t it?
Having outlined what a rod does, we need to then be quite critical about what we are actually expecting the rod to do – especially in an order of priorities, as we will soon see there are going to be some compromises to be dealt with. Which functions do we value the most & which the least? – as there is never going to be a fishing rod that does everything! An example of this occurs frequently in our shop, where clients come in looking for the ultimate surf rod that will do everything for them. Catching Galjeon of less than 1kg, up to 100kg+ Bronzies, cast sinkers and baits as far as Brazil, then when all done, dismantle into 2 or more pieces for ease of transportation. This is not an exaggeration, but a relatively frequent request, which is met with the polite response that “that rod has yet to be invented”.
At this point a brief explanation as to whom we are; we are Jeri & Sue Drake of Excalibur Tackle in Namibia. We are professional custom rod builders, that are happy to build rods for any fish, anywhere in the world, whether it is an ultra light 4 piece, 4 weight fly rod for tiny Brook Trout, or a tanker pulling 80lb class Bent Butt Marlin rod for 400kg+ Black Marlin – and everything in between. Our base however is in Henties Bay, Namibia, means that we do get a large proportion of surf angler clients, as well as those travelling further north to the Zambezi & Okavango for Tigerfish and Nembwe. We have been building custom rods for over 25 years now, and this has covered a very wide array of species, and allows us a background of wider than usual experience to offer solutions that are not always usual for southern Africa, but might have extreme relevance to any particular clients’ needs.
But enough about us, back to the discussion of the rod and what we expect of it – and the surf rod is perhaps the one of the most compromised designs that we build, and apart from the casting aspect – the design criteria equally apply to a lot of boat rods. The design criteria of a surf rod are very similar to those of the many varieties of spinning rods, whether they are used as traditional or the recent invention of ‘dropshot’ spinning – all basically casting – just distance and weight requirements differ.
The average surf rod is first expected to cast a weight and bait out into fish holding areas – whether that is 15 meters or 150 metres from the shore. In extreme cases, specifically sharks – it may be called upon to tackle a fish weighing in excess of 150kg. In other cases it must detect the slightest bite of shy fish, and finesse them from a kelp environment. The middle ground in this equation is going to be our starting point for the design and discussion, rather than either of the extremes – a normal ‘surf stick’!
The ‘norm’ for the west coast is for a rod that can cast a bait and sinker to a zone mostly at 95-135 metres from the beach & cope with surf conditions that mostly require between 5-7 ounces of lead to hold the bait against the current and wave action. All easy enough, but we haven’t yet even looked at the angler yet! Are they young, old, in between, strong, less strong, competent caster or a beginner, tall or short – as well as a host of other factors – without even considering the actual usage of the rod – is it going to be used with a multiplier or a fixed spool reel, braid or monofilament nylon?????
But, before we start down the road of the rod design, we must look at the angler first – even if that means that we stand in front of a mirror and critically analyse ourselves. Tall anglers generally can work a 13-14 foot rod with ease, while a shorter angler might be more at home with a 12-13 foot rod, but be able to cast to equally distant marks as the tall fellow with the long rod. Physical stature and strength are equally important for getting the right rod for best performance – softer and slower action blanks suit the less physical angler, while stiffer and faster action blanks can suit the stronger angler, but not always.
A common problem that we do encounter is based a little on ‘macho image’ and the common, but wrong belief that more lead means more distance! Just about every surf rod ever built will have a ‘sweet spot’ in its design, that allows it to cast a very specific weight to the maximum of distance of that blank design. Go over or under that ‘sweet spot’ weight and distance will fall off considerably. It is in this area that many anglers buy rods that are far too strong for their physical attributes – effectively over gunning themselves. Whether this is bravado amongst their peers, or through erroneous information from salesmen – we see a lot of folks bringing rods to our coast, that they will never get adequate performance from. When they come to us, and try one of our sample rods, they are most often amazed that they can get seriously more distance by stepping down to lower rated rods with lower casting weights – a case of being honest with yourself about your physical stature and strength.
To this point in the ‘normal surf rod’ discussion, we have only looked briefly at casting to moderate distances; without even considering the ‘big distance’ sticks and other aspects of our ‘middle ground’ rod. Bite detection, striking ability, fighting characteristics are all aspects that bear consideration when dealing with a design as well as the optimum rod for a specific purpose, and for a specific angler. In later articles we will then take some of these and use them in the actual ‘build’ of the rod, for that angler.
In the next part of the series, we hope to look at some of these other factors, as well as start to consider some of the ‘build factors’ that all come into the equation for the perfect rod.