With ultra-lite rods guys do a lot of fish swinging into the boat when fishing for panfish. I get a little uncomfortable with tip sizes less than 4.5 on these rods and try to look for 4.5 as much as possible.

Does anyone built many panfish rods with 4.0 tops and do they hold up well?

Thanks,
Marc

Marc,
Whether folks swing fish into a boat with a rod, is generally a pretty bad idea. One never knows how big a fish actually is, until it is actually measured. One never knows what a fish might do, just as it breaks the surface of the water.

If a client purchases a rod, the person might be suggested to not use the rod to swing a fish into the boat, no matter the size of the rod, nor the size of the fish.

I will say that many years ago, I was fishing a northern lake using an ultra light commercial rod. I hooked one of the largest crappies that I have ever caught. I did exactly what you mention. I swung the fish into the boat and actually had the rod pointing vertically with the fish hanging straight down on the line when the fish flapped and the rod snapped, more or less in the middle of the rod.

We ended up keeping the fish - just for the principle of the event, and I did repair the rod, but it reminded me to ever avoid doing that in the future. Since then, by never swinging fish into a boat and never high sticking a rod, I have never had the reoccurance of a similar event. Also, I keep an eye on all of the activity that is going on in the boat and if it appears that I person is going to swing in a fish or high stick a fish, I try to insert a gentle "slow down" to the person to avoid such a similar damage event from happening. .

I have actually built quite a few walleye rods with size 4 tips and when delivering the rod, have always cautioned the folks against the use of high sticking and fish swinging by the rod.

For most of the rods of this type, I never had any issues or call backs on rod failures. However, a few years ago, I had purchased a batch of a new high end rod with a size 4 tip, and it turned out that every single one of these rods ended up breaking about a foot down from the tip. I gave the distributor a call and summarized the issue. They indicated that there was a problem in the new design and to return any non built rods and also to supply them with the number of rods already out in use. A month or so later, I received a new batch of rods that had been redesigned - still with a size 4 tip, but a difference in the blank down the rod a bit, where all of the breaks had happened. Over time, all of the rods were rebuilt and all of the clients remained happy with their purchases.

So, once in a while a product may make it to market that has an issue. Fortunately, in this case, the manufacturer stood behind the product with a newly designed blank that solved the initial issues.

Best wishes.

Thanks Roger. I do try to instruct people as best I can, but the number of "silly" things I have seen people do with rods has me looking to build a little insurance into them when possible.

I seem to meet a lot of folks that want a rod to fish nice, but really need them to hold up to the occasional "oops" as good as possible. I know - it's a tough balance.

Don't haul fish with an ultralight, use a net. You will probably get away with it a few times but eventually it will break. Especially these high end HM blanks.

I agree with Lance, swinging fish into a boat with any UL is a disaster waiting to happen, no matter the tip size.
Norm

The ultralights built on the dual helix, DHX, design at United Composite are tougher than most.