Multiple piece fishing rods are great for travel and storage, but prone to getting stuck together. Often at the most inopportune times like when you’re packing for a flight home after your awesome vacation fishing trip! If your fishing rod sections are stuck together and you need to separate the pieces for traveling, storage, or maintenance – this article will show you how to successfully pull them apart.
The top ways to unstick a fishing rod are:
- Behind the knees method – hold the rod behind your knees, use your legs to push against your hands to separate the sections.
- Cool the joint to shrink it enough to slide out.
- Two person – arms crossing and working together to pull the sections apart.
Let’s talk about these methods in more detail along with things to be aware of with each of them. We also have some tips to help prevent it from happening again.
How do you get a stuck fishing rod apart?
You can try with just your arms first by holding the rod and lifting it until your hands are up around your collar bones or chin height, then pulling them apart. Failing that, most anglers have had good luck with the behind the knees trick.
Behind the knees method to separate fishing rod sections
Make sure you take a quick look around for any obstacles that might get in the way – you don’t want to be jamming the fishing rod into any walls or furniture when the sections come flying apart. It might be best to do this outside so you don’t chance breaking your fishing pole.
This method takes advantage of leverage. Arms don’t have very much strength pulling apart from each which is what is needed in this situation. Also, the fact that your legs, with much more muscle mass, are generally many times stronger than your arms. And utilized together can exert a lot more force than just by themselves. Using your legs will also help steady your grip on the rod as well as help prevent flexing the rod at the joints, causing stress and weakening or cracking the ferrules.
While holding the rod behind your back, stoop down with your knees together. Lower the rod towards the floor placing it behind your thighs or down lower in the bend of your knees with the stuck ferrule between your knees.
Now, making sure you have a firm grip on the rod, one hand on either side of the stuck ferrule and with your hands/arms tight against your legs, push outward against your arms with you legs pulling the sections apart.
You can also try this sitting down with your knees raised in front of you. Holding the rod underneath the bend in your knees, hands tight against your legs, and pushing outward against your hands with your knees. Think the opposite of Suzanne Somers’ Thighmaster workout!
If steady pressure doesn’t work for you, get a real firm grip on the rod with your hands and try using a quick leg jerk against your hands/arms to separate the pieces – that often does the trick!
Cooling the joint
Ever watch Seinfield? Most materials, with only a few exceptions, shrink when exposed to the cold. Am I right, fellas?
This happens because as things heat up, kinetic energy increases and the atoms and molecules get revved up and move around more, taking up more space and thus expanding. Conversely, molecules move around less as they cool – essentially taking up less room and the material contracts.
Different materials can expand and contract more than others depending on the amount of force holding their atoms together. This could affect the amount of time needed to cool the joint in order to loosen it up enough to pull it apart.
Here’s a list of some things you might have laying around that you can use to help cool the joint – depending on what you have available and how much time you have, these can take anywhere from a few seconds to overnight to be affective:
- Bagged ice, freezer gel, frozen vegetables, or even some wet paper towels or napkins that you’ve stuck in the freezer for a while – wrap or stack a few of the ice packs tightly around the stuck ferrules for anywhere from several minutes to as long as an hour.
- If it’s cold outside, you can set the rod outside in freezing temperatures overnight. If all goes well, you should be able to take the rod apart in the morning.
- If you have snow or ice around, you can try laying the stuck sections in the snow to cool them off. Of course if you’re still streamside, laying the rod in the water for several minutes might just be enough. You might have to try this a couple of times until it cooperates. Fiberglass is a poor thermal conductor and might take longer than other materials.
- Try canned air like you use for dusting your computer keyboard. Turn the can over and spray the liquid on the joint. Wait a minute, giving it a squirt every few seconds. As it evaporates, it will cause the joint to freeze. Because the male and female sides expand and contract at different rates, this should break the seal. Don’t spray it in your eyes!
- If you have a can of butane, like is used for filling lighters, you can spray that for a few seconds on the male side of the ferrule.This can work very quickly so you should be able to unlock the ferrule immediately after spraying.
You may need to try the cooling method in combination with the behind the knees trick or the next recommended technique with help from a fellow fisherman.
Using two people – getting a little help from a friend
If you have someone available to help you, this technique takes two people pulling at the same time. Facing each other, you both grab the rod one hand on each side of the stuck ferrule – just as if you were doing it by yourself but your arms crossing theirs.
Make sure not to put both of your hands on one side of the stuck ferrule. Unlike a tug of war where you are pulling against each other, you want to be working together as a team, essentially doubling your strength – and pulling the same direction at the same time.
Make sure the person you’ve asked to help you understands that you don’t want to brace your hands against the guides. Don’t use the guides for your grip or leverage while trying to pull or you’ll risk damaging or even breaking them clean off with the force needed to pull the stuck sections apart.
You’ll also have a little better control if you have your hands spread just a bit away from the joint you’re trying to separate. Remember this general rule for better control when assembling or taking apart a sectional fishing rod: “Putting the rod together, hands together. Taking the rod apart, hands apart.”
What about penetrating oils like WD-40, Triflow lubricant or something similar? These work great in instances where you need to loosen up corroded parts. But they’ve proven to be less effective where the parts are stuck together by vacuum or constriction caused by moisture or temperature and may even increase the vacuum due to the moisture of the oil. In our research, most anglers agree against using penetrating oils as a means to loosen stuck ferrules.
Warnings / things to watch out for when trying to separate fishing rod sections
- Be careful to not bend or flex the rod while you’re trying to separate the sections. You don’t want to bend or crack the ferrule just adding insult to injury.
- As mentioned before, don’t grasp the guides and be mindful of where you place your hands so they don’t accidentally hit the guides if they slip. Place your hands on the opposite side of the guides so the force is moving away from them instead of towards them (as much as possible).
- Do it in a safe place. Take a second to look around and note any obstacles that might get hit if the pole comes apart in too quick a shot. Give yourself plenty of room to swing the pole around your body if using the behind the knees trick so you don’t hit any trees, vehicles, furniture, or other people. The last thing you want is to finally get your pole unstuck just to have it fly into a wall and break!
- It might be ok to twist a graphite pole a little if it helps, but you don’t ever want to twist a bamboo rod – they can split and break if you do. If you decide to twist a little, make sure you are pulling at the same time so the force is more “apart” than actually twisting.
Ways to increase grip when unsticking a fishing rod
Sometimes it just comes down to getting a little better grip in order to pull the sections apart. Here are some suggestions how you can increase your grasp to make separating the ferrules easier:
- A couple of cut up sections of rubber kitchen shelf liner (2 to 3 inches wide and 4 to 6 inches long) wrapped around each side of the stuck ferrule. Some people just keep some handy in their tackle box or fishing vest to have on hand when needed.
- Pieces of a scrap bicycle, car, or motorcycle inner tube wrapped around each side of the joint – this works especially well when the rod is wet and slippery.
- Rubber jar lid openers
- Rubber dishwashing, fishing, latex, or neoprene gloves – these also make it so you don’t have to grip so tightly
- Gaffer’s (about a 2’ length folded in half lengthwise) or double-sided carpet tape wrapped around each section. Having the tacky side being also on the outside will help give a much better grip. Wrap the tape in opposite directions and twist the same direction as they were wrapped.
- Some anglers recommend good old fashioned pliers – but only do this after you’ve protected the rod with something else – like scrap pieces of rubber or tape. You don’t want to damage your fishing pole!
- Try this: Wrap some masking tape three or four times around both sides of the joint but don’t tear off the tape yet (you’ll need to use two rolls at the same time). Attach two to four pieces of wood about 1/2″ square and 3 or 4 inches long onto the masking tape on each side of the joint and wrap those a few times. This increases both the grip from the texture of the wood and the diameter of the rod, increasing the force of gripping it exponentially and the joint then comes apart quite easily.
- A cut up old mouse pad with the sticky rubber on the back side wrapped around the sections with the sticky side against the pole
- A small rubber strap wrench
- Grip with neoprene cocoon lure/jig wraps
Hopefully this list has given you some ideas and will help you find something you might have lying around that’ll help give you a better grip when trying to take your fishing rod apart.
How do fishing rod sections get stuck together – things that cause it to happen?
If you’re serious enough about fishing, it’s bound to happen at some point. But why do they lock up in the first place?
There are a few common reasons that can cause the ferrule to seize.
- Debree – sand, dirt, or grime can get caught in the joint making it more difficult to separate
- Differences in temperature – changes in temperature from the warmth of the day, being in your vehicle, getting wet, or exposure to ice or snow can cause one section to expand or contract a little more or less than the other binding the two together.
- Vacuum – While casting, the rod and ferrules flex. The male section will flex slightly differently from the hollow female section which allows air to enter or escape from the hollow upper rod section. As temps warm up during the day the air in the hollow section can expand creating pressure which is released as the rod is cast and flexed – allowing it to escape. But when the rod cools down, the air has a more difficult time escaping and may not leak back out, causing a vacuum to form in the upper section and locking the pieces together.
How to stop/prevent fishing pole joints from sticking
So now that you know how to successfully separate your stuck fishing rod, let’s talk briefly about some steps you can take to prevent the joints from sticking in the first place. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
- First, keep the joints clean as a part of regular maintenance. Use a cotton swab to clean any grime out of the ferrule and thoroughly wipe down the male end. Use a soft cloth moistened with a little rubbing alcohol.
- Make sure they’re clean and dry – that there’s no dirt or grit sticking to it – when you put them together.
- Don’t store the fishing pole in a hot place, like your car.
- Occasionally (every 5th or 6th time out) apply a little wax or oil to the male ferrule when you go to put them together. Not only will this help slide the pieces together easier, but doing this will also help keep them from loosening while casting.
- Just use a little as too much can increase the likelihood of causing a vacuum and make it more difficult to separate instead of easier.
- Paraffin or cheap white birthday candles work great. Some anglers use beeswax and some would rather not because they say beeswax melts too easily when it gets warm – your choice.
- We recommend against using nose or ear oil, especially on the metal ferrules on bamboo rods. Nose oil contains fine dust particles as well as fatty acids and salt that will corrode metal.
- The metal ferrules on bamboo rods don’t need wax and should be seated with a strait push – don’t twist these kind of connections.
- Graphite and fiberglass ferrules, however, should be seated with a quarter twist after applying a little wax – lining up the guides. Here’s a tip to lining up the guides: sight down the rod with the guides on the bottom making sure that equal amounts of the guides overlap on each side of the pole. Your eye can more easily pick up the variance in offset.
- Don’t let any dirt get mixed in with the wax – this could cause abrasion and wear on the ferrule making it too loose leading to a broken rod or thrown section while casting or fighting a fish.
- Pole elastic lubricant, baby powder, or graphite from a soft lead pencil can help prevent sticking
- Make sure the pieces are thoroughly dry before putting them together. Pole sections are notorious for sticking when wet. If you put a joint together when it is wet the water acts like a lubricant allowing the pieces to go together a bit further than they should causing them to get stuck. Something to be aware of if the pole gets wet or it’s raining.
- If you put your pole together when it’s cold, expansion will occur as the temps warm up. Prevent sticking by easing the sections apart every hour or so while you’re fishing.
- Some poles screw themselves tighter as you twist them together and you have to reverse that when you take them apart. It can be better to push the sections together and not twist them at all, especially when wet.
- When joining the sections together, just seat them firmly together. Don’t force down on the joint and never ram the two pieces together. If you’re a bit heavy handed, put the pole together normally (correctly) before your fishing trip and mark the joint depth with a bit of tape. Use that as a gauge so you don’t overdo it in the future.
As with most problems in life, sometimes the best solution is to just go fishing more often. Eventually the fishing pole sections will come apart on their own – Happy Fishing!