I'm curious why the fold down rods which seem to be popular in Japan, are not even thought about here outside of Snoopy & Tweety Bird KMart specials? I'm talking about the rods which fold all teh way down to like less than a foot long. They have all sorts of high end guides for them, so I have ot assume they are somewhat popular.

With everyone travelling and trying to figure out how to bring their rods on airplanes and how to ship them, worrying if they'll be broken or lost - we could make a rod which we can take in our carry on luggage.

Most three and four pieces 6 of 7 foot spinnning/casting rods when broken down are short enough to carry inside your luggage. I have rolling Shaw Grigsby luggage that has two 3' rod tubes built into it. (I have another SG rolling luhgage with a matching carry on bag that I will part with)
The trouble with those multi section telescopic rods is a couple of things. The guides are usually specialized and made of graphite wraping around the blank just under the guide ring to save space. (they look sort of like the figure 8)The stress on a graphite attaching ring around a blank that holds a size 25 spinning guide over it would probably be prone to failure. Now a set casting guides are much smaller. If a 6 foot rod used 1/2' thread wrap per S.F. guide + tip that would be an aditional 3.5" added to the length of the blank sections when broken down. The space taken up curently by the guides is about 2 inches total when they are tightly nested. Also the multi sections have a tendancey to stick in the extended position and not collapse, its almost like these rods should come with a ferrrule lube so that they will collapse

[www.fujitackle.com]
[www.fujitackle.com]

I wish I could figure out what they're saying, lol. It seems like there is a tube of somethign on the left hand side where they show you how to use the guides. I do notice the guide sizes are all small, smaller than what we normally use here (4.5 is a common size in Japan, apparantly). I was hoping the rod could be used for heavier applications where currently there really aren't any 3 or 4 piece blanks, 20-40#. But that does not seem to be the case at all.

I do like the not tangling UL tip top, all the framed tips I use (F, MN, P) end up gettingthe braid-mono connection knot stuck in the frame at some point. I've been trying to figure out a way to prevent this, and with the 4.5 size beign the largest they offer, I still have some figuring out to do.

I'd still like to give one of these a shot, just because. It has an eerie resemblence to the Ron Popiel Pocket Fisherman, which probably isn't a good thing.

Check out some of the European rod companies. Trabucco makes telescoping big game rods. The Bolognesie rods (sp?) are usually VERY long and they are all telescoping. Like you said Billy it's kind of funny these rods are very popular over seas but here they're reserved for the snoopy rods. Kind of like soccer and the metric system.

Randy

I have had a telescoping rod outfit for years. It's called Ron Popiel pocket fisherman (LOL)

Billy you need to change your iteniary for next years fishing trip. You should try Lake Guierro in Mexico. The fishing guides there use mono wrapped around a pork and beans empty can as both a rod and reel. The guys can actually cast a crankbait with their hands and use the can as a reel on the retrieve. They never get tangled and never never a professional over run!