Paul Arden | Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Now this might seem like I’m the last person to issue this sort of advice. I must have broken a couple of hundred fishing rods. I’ve cast them to death, I’ve jumped on them, I’ve thrown them over cliffs, I’ve driven over them, I’ve driven away from them while leaving them on the car roof, I’ve broken them trying to unstick from snags and of course I’ve been unlucky.
Car doors, yes. Ceiling fans, absolutely. Trolling motors, yep. In short I am an expert rod killer. Now there may well be some people who break rods on purpose. Not I. I’ve only broken one rod on purpose, and that bloody thing had already been thrown off a cliff, the tip had broken in several places, and the remaining sections were permanently glued together. I probably shouldn’t have broken it, but Ronan and I were clearing out the truck for a TV pilot on Discovery Channel and I got carried away. Had it been a Sexyloops rod I wouldn’t have killed it. Sexyloops rods are immortal.
Anyway… if we are talking “accidental rod breakages” I may be the world’s leading expert. Which of course makes me the best person to write this piece of advice.
Gary Coxon, who was the Sage representative in the UK, gave an AAPGAI talk where he said that tip sections break like matchsticks and the next time you break a tip section test this out for yourself. He’s right. Not surprisingly of course, because Gary is one of the good ones.
So if you have a “sports car” fly rod, then you need to treat it as such. Accidents happen. Ceiling fans, car doors, driving over your rods — there is not much you can do about these life events, if karma is so committed. Flick it off; “karma got me”, c’est la vie. I don’t worry about that shjt either. So that’s like 50 rods right there.
The two I do worry about, is “high sticking”/tight rod angles while* playing fish and unsnagging snags . Let’s deal with these separately:
I fish 40lbs tippet on an 8WT rod. There are a lot of angles 40lb pull will bust a rod. Straight down the line is not one of them. The biggest challenge is landing a fish when it’s between you and the rod tip. So shorten the lever and grab the rod (and line) 1/3 up the rod and always keep the rod tip angled down. [POD]
If your connections aren’t smooth enough to enable this, then fix this first! Qwek’s twisted leader is a smooth(ish) connection.
When it comes to “unsnagging” snags, then the literature tells you to roll cast and then immediately make an overhead cast. Sudden tight impact is of course a great way to pop a rod, so please don’t do this! Instead roll cast beyond the snag only — do this first and see if that frees the fly. If this fails then make another roll cast AND immediately after make a Snap Cast/Mend. With this second approach you now have two waves travelling down the line. You are ONLY trying to free the fly by using force applied from the opposite side of the snag.
If this still doesn’t work, after repeated attempts, then either give a straight line pull and go for bust (snag/hook/leader/fly line — preferably in that order and never rod), or else go up to the snag and then simply free it either by hand or by carefully using the rod tip.
What you DON’T want to do is play matchsticks with your sports car fly rod. Of course if you don’t have a Sexyloops fly rod, then just smash it out any way you feel like, and then get in touch with me to buy something that suits you better.
Have a great week everyone!!!
Cheers, Paul
*for the astute English language observer, “while” should of course be “whilst”. However “unsnagging” is a new word. We like to be at the front end of language development here at Sexyloops. You should see what I’m currently doing to the Malay language.