Quote Originally Posted by CoachBob View Post
I owe my rod an apology. I was out with my old super cheap fiberglass two piece today and after about 15 minutes the casting got difficult. Usually I can easily manage 40-60 feet with hauling and all of a sudden 40 was undoable and my language was less than gentile. After struggling for six plus casts i got suspicious that maybe I had twisted the line around a guide. i was wrong. What actually happened was that the upper section of the rod came loose at the ferrule and the rod was not transferring any energy above the ferrule. Trust me, that will make you cuss.
So I fixed that and tightened the connection.
Still, casts were awful. More cussing. Reexamination showed that when i attached the pieces together I managed to rotate the tip and make a wrap completely around the rod, so hauling was useless.
I've had ferrules come loose before, but usually notice right away. This was *&^%%$# different, and MY fault.
I had a similar problem last summer where I had been fishing at short distances for most of the day in and out of brushy areas. I finally came to an open part of the river and the wind picked up about the same time. I could not push a cast into the wind for the life of me. I started hearing a squeeking sound from my rod while casting. When I took a close look at my rod, I found that I had pine sap stuck all along the tip section that was causing the line to stick to the rod. There was no way that I could shoot line, and the little line that would move past the section squeeked on the pine sap. Luckily, this rod has a spare tip, so I was able to change tips and keep fishing.

Ted