Tippet Breaking Strength

[leo1357]

Ah I see. Cool, thanks for the clarity.

[E.T.]

Ok, attach a spring weight measure to the line, and pull with the rod, and see how much it can pull. You can use the thing you would weigh a fish with. Attach to a static object, and the other end to the line, and see how much you can pull. I'm saying that you wont exert that much pressure. Regardless of what the rod will take, its just not possible to exert more than a few pounds of pressure.

Remember the old Scott Heliply ads in the Fishing Mags? The guy stood on the boat and dead lifted the anchor. So how much pressure did he put on the rod? 5lbs? 10lbs? What about the guy pulling hard on a GT or trying to lift a Yellowfin Tuna from the depths?

There is a difference in pressure between letting the line run whilst playing a fish and dead lifting. Would you be able to land a 20kg fish on a 7wt, probably. Would you be able to dead lift a 5kg fish with a 7wt? I saw a guy break a 6wt on a 2kg Yellow on the Vaal. He lifted the rod above his head and then tried lifting the fish. The result? He popped the rod on one of the mid sections. He stood there in disbelieve, now if he took that rod to his left or right and pulled hard sideways, he would have landed that fish without breaking the rod.

So back to breaking strain....
Some rods give you a line rating for a reason. You can fish ultra light and let the fish run and play it till you are able to land it. But stepping the line up to 20lb on something that can only handle 7-15lb dead lift, you will break the rod before the line snaps, because the pulling power and the lifting power combined adds up and something must give and if it's not the line, it will be the rod.

[E.T.]

What happens to a rod of lets say 20-30lb that gets fished with 40-60lb line out on one of those boats from a Lodge in Mozambique? Those use and abuse type rods for general fishing and trolling?

1. If the guides aren't aligned on the spline, the rod starts turning in your hands while you are fighting a big fish, resulting guides to bend or even break clean out of the binding and epoxy/varnish.
2. Rods break in unimaginable places
3. Reel seats and grips come loose
4. Guides looses inserts
5. Reels break out of the reel seats, etc.

I know this is an example based on heavier tackle, but this is what happens when you overload rods, something has to give. If you see some of the rods that come in for repairs from some of the Island Lodges you would be amazed.

[redhumpy]

[redhumpy]

[Booger Rose]

This one hurt me while watching.

[smallstreams.co.za]

Typed for a 6-year old, but it should do I guess

http://www.kinderart.com/teachers/waterweigh.shtml

[dlampert]

Hi Guys,

If I understand this correctly, a lighter weight rod is good for light strength tippet as it protects it from breaking off. I would like to know the other side of this.
What strength would a person limit their tippet to in order to protect their rod from breaking (take a 3 weight for example)? Is there a generally considered strength or not really?

You generally don't want to be fishing a tippet with a breaking strain higher than the core of your fly line. Most freshwater lines have 30lb cores if I remember correctly and saltwater lines can have between 30lb - 80lb cores. If your tippet snaps its easy to replace - if your flyline snaps (or someone stands on it and breaks it - I won't mention any names) its usually a sadder moment ;-)

[leo1357]

You generally don't want to be fishing a tippet with a breaking strain higher than the core of your fly line. Most freshwater lines have 30lb cores if I remember correctly and saltwater lines can have between 30lb - 80lb cores. If your tippet snaps its easy to replace - if your flyline snaps (or someone stands on it and breaks it - I won't mention any names) its usually a sadder moment ;-)

lol thanks yeah that makes sense

[smallstreams.co.za]

You generally don't want to be fishing a tippet with a breaking strain higher than the core of your fly line. Most freshwater lines have 30lb cores if I remember correctly and saltwater lines can have between 30lb - 80lb cores. If your tippet snaps its easy to replace - if your flyline snaps (or someone stands on it and breaks it - I won't mention any names) its usually a sadder moment ;-)

I've been lucky, no-one had stood on one of my lens yet, phew!!