life length of a rod

[Keppenbill]

wat worry is there in buying a 20 year old rod if any, does a rod lose its fishablity or does the flex change jw before i buy thanks

 

[krayfish]

I'm still fishing the Sage GFL 379 RP that I bought in 1984. It's on tip #3 but still fishes good.

 

[Rolf]

No it does not. The important question is, "Do you like the way it casts"?

 

[dryflyguy]

My favorite rod is a Loomis IMX 2 weight that is about 20 years old.
I've hiked into remote locations with this thing - falling and dropping it numerous times. And it still looks - and fishes - great. Never had a problem with it
But it's a high quality rod IMO.
On the other hand, I have several Orvis rods - not quite as old - that didn't hold up nearly as well.

 

[afishinado]

Rolf wrote:
No it does not. The important question is, "Do you like the way it casts"?

Worth a bump...nuff said.

 

[bikerfish]

most flyfishing rods and reels, given proper treatment, will outlast the people that originally bought them new. I regularly fish equipment that is 50 or even 75 years old, and will continue to catch fish long after I'm gone.
fishing equipment marketing departments hate people like me. they want you to believe you will never catch anything without the latest and greatest stuff.

 

[Maurice]

I think the OP's question is an interesting inquiry. How long have the graphites been out? 30? 35 years? Is there any degradation to the material over time? Does anyone know?

We have bamboo that has had its 100 years test, most older models from the 40 and fifties in the production era are 60, 70 years old and seem to be restored to fishable condition.

Then there is Fiberglass, seems the next synthetic, pretty durable but heavy but you don't hear of them breaking down.....

Theres Graphite, Carbon fiber, boron in the new era.....what say the jugheads on these materials? Should these rods outlast from a materials breakdown standpoint?

My oldest rod is a sage Discovery from 1988-89 but I havn't fished it in a few years because the tip is broke. But it always performed well twenty years after its production date.

It will be interesting to see what can be said for these modern composites from a long term durability perspective.

Dryflyguy brings up some interesting perspective.

 

[bikerfish]

what's this graphite stuff you talk of?? :-?

 

[Rolf]

bikerfish wrote:
what's this graphite stuff you talk of?? :-?

I believe they call it "Tupperware".

 

[troutbert]

I had the ferrule fail on a graphite rod once. I don't think I bumped it or anything. It seemed like after some years of heavy use the ferrule just split. It was an inexpensive fly rod so I threw it away.

Guides, especially the tip top guide, can get grooved, and then need to be replaced. You might check that.

But whether or not the graphite eventually loses its bounce after years of use, I don't know. I've never experienced that and never heard anyone else mention it. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[dryflyguy]

I also doubt that the action of a graphite rod ever wears out.
The problems I've had were construction issues - ferrules loosening up, guide wraps falling apart, handles and reel seats getting beat up.
And in my case, this happened with the cheaper rods.

 

[gfen]

bikerfish wrote:
most flyfishing rods and reels, given proper treatment, will outlast the people that originally bought them new. I regularly fish equipment that is 50 or even 75 years old, and will continue to catch fish long after I'm gone.

A 96 year old fly rod.
A 76 year old fly reel.
A 196 year old fly pattern swung in the oldest of techniques.

All in all, it worked just fine.

 

[jayL]

I won the war against easy pass. Your picture just alerted me to that. I have held out for years, was about to cave, and finally, it doesn't matter. Yay.

Anyway, what the others have said. If it casts well, use it. I am pretty satisfied with my lineup of rods right now, and fully plan on using them 'til I break them. If that takes 25+ years, so be it. With the warranties on a few of them, it should.

 

[gfen]

jayL wrote:
I won the war against easy pass. Your picture just alerted me to that. I have held out for years, was about to cave, and finally, it doesn't matter. Yay.

I'm glad I've given into EZ Pass. Its convienent and basically free.

I just taught myself how to strip and then re-wrap a guide using a 1940s South Bend rod. Now its got a single disco gold thread wrapping. I wanted a long rod to swing wets with. THis thing is a club. How the hell did anyone use these?

 

[afishinado]

Most guys fish maybe 50 days a year, even 100 days which is an awful lot, but many guides fish at lot more than that and have used their graphite rods for many years. I believe, for all intent and purposes, the life of a graphite fly rod far exceeds the life of an angler. As other have said, the parts of a rod are far more likely to wear out than the graphite blank itself.

 

[MKern]

If they make car parts out of graphite/carbon fiber and they last hte life of a car (which sees a lot more vibration and stress than a fishing rod) it should last a lifetime.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

I only have one graphite rod. The rest are all old glass rods, all going strong. I'm the second owner of two of them, and unless I need a longer rod, they're my go-to rods.