Rod trouble

Last evening for the first time this season it seemed all the fishing planets had finally aligned. There have been so many changes to the lake we fish since last year that it has been like learning to fish an entirely new lake and we've not been catching much. But last evening about 7:00 suddenly the bite was on. We'd been casting for a while with little interest and all of the sudden things started to happen. My first strike, set the hook and the line parted. Lost my frog and the fish. I thought it was just because of some frayed line so I stripped off a bunch, tied on a new frog and cast out again. Strike, set the hook and my line parted. Found the frog this time. I looked at eye at the tip of my rod and it seemed ok, no sharp edges. Stripped off some more line, tied another frog on and started to cast again. Strike, set the hook and my line parted for the third time. Lost the frog and fish again. I sat down to inspect the eyes on the rod because at this point even I could figure out there was an issue with the rod. The fourth eye from the tip was the problem.



I am not sure why only this one eye would wear like it did. Maybe there is a flat spot in the rod that puts pressure on that particular eye. The rod is only two seasons old and doesn't have that much time on it and the other eyes don't show any wear. I'm not sure how to repair it either.
I went for my back-up rod and found this:



I don't know where that came from. I'm gonna guess the rod holder in the boat and I snagged it getting the rod out. I need to be more careful and in the mean time I've got two rods to repair. One thing's for sure, I need to get better at maintaining my stuff.

BTW, our go-to friend Bigfoot was getting the strikes

Also be sure to check the where the line attaches to the Bigfoot frog. Had the same problem with line breaking and all my frogs had major burrs cutting my knots. A Norman quick clip solved the problem of my line breaking.

The cracked guide happened to me to, it took 3-4 lost baits to find the culprit.

Use a qtip. The cotton will catch in any cracked guide. Braid and sharp glass do not mix!

basscrappie said:

Mudhole.com. they have what you need, and the videos to help you do it.

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I ordered from them a couple of days ago. I got three. Two to lose, one to use. :mrgreen:

Captain Ahab said:

Use a qtip. The cotton will catch in any cracked guide. Braid and sharp glass do not mix!

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Wow! Your not completely useless here. Thanks for the tip Captain.

Wt heck?