I am brand new at fly fishing, so new in fact that I haven’t had a hook wet yet. My little brother gave me a rod, and I have been practicing in the yard. If this is the wrong place to post questions, then someone please let me know where I should be. My question is this, when I have been practicing, every once in a while the end of the rod will come off. The rod has 3 pieces. I read somewhere that putting wax on the male end, would help this, but it seems to me that would make it slick and thus worse. Anyone know of a good remedy for this? I know a better rod, would probably work, but I hate to put any $ out, until I have at least made sure I am going to like fly fishing. Which I will have to say, if I like it as much as I have enjoyed reading about it and watching it on TV, I am already hooked! I’d appreciate any help or tips, thanks.
Welcome aboard! I resemble your user name.:rolleyes:
Try candle wax (not automotive wax). A birthday candle will do nicely. Just rub it over the male end of the ferrule where the female end of the upper section contacts it. Then use your fingers to smooth the wax - the heat in your fingers will melt the wax slightly. When you join the sections, start them at 90 degrees rotation apart, and as you GENTLY push them together, rotate them into alignment at the same time. This should help…
hungNtree -
Greetings and welcome from SE Idaho.
You came to the right place with your question. Just be prepared.
Definitely use wax, or parafin, on the male ferrules. It doesn’t make them slippery to come apart, rather it does keep them together. I believe that what happens is that the wax helps improve the suction between the two sections, which is why they stay together better.
Hopefully, someone will come along with a more authorative explanation for “why.”
One thing - the wax, especially if there is too much, can collect some dust, sand, dirt, grit, whatever. That stuff could damage the blank. So before you put the sections together, it is a good idea to wipe the male ferrule with a clean soft cloth.
Heritage Angler made a suggestion that I’ve seen many times. I just can’t get in the habit at this point, but a lot of folks do swear by it.
John
hungNtree;
Welcome aboard! You are in the right place to get the right answers.
Heritage Angler is correct. The candle wax will not only tighten up a ferrule it will also keep it from sticking.
Where from in Tennessee?
Hi HangNtree, and welcome aboard. You have found the BEST fly fishing site in the universe.( jmo )
These people are so helpful, you just can’t imagine.
As what Heritage Angler stated, I firmly agree, just remember to twist opposite direction when taking rod apart.
If you have any time, I highly recommend reading past articles on this board.
Again Welcome
Mark
Welcome. Just thinking about the obvious, you do have it strung with a line yeah? If so, wax as suggested, and maybe you are putting too much energy into it? If you are just practising without a line in, then it will come adrift much easier.
hungNtree,
I agree completley with what others are saying. When I first heard of it I too thought just the opposite. I now carry a candle in my bag always. One more thing I would like to add is that every so often I clean off the wax with a little alcohol on a Q-Tip from the female side and wipe the male end off clean and reapply. Keeps the grit to a minimum as John refers to.
With the wax on you don’t have to push the peices as hard together and they will stay put and always come apart at the end of a long day.
Leo C
How’d you get in the tree?
Just kidding, we’ve all been there. Welcome to the FAOL BB. I carry a plug of bee’s wax in my tackle bag for that purpose. Also do the quarter twist thing to ‘seat’ the rod together. It’s an old plumbing trick used when gluing pvc pipe joints together. It smears the stickum uniformly around the rod. I never thought of a candle. Bought a plug of wax and can’t seem to use it up. Jimsnarocks
hungNtree,
Welcome to the BEST web site for fly fishing, tying, rod building and anything else that pertains to fly fishing. There is endless help for you here and all will be doing their best to assist you. Just remember you have myself, Jack and many more fly fishermen from Tennessee here to help and if we knew where in Tennessee you are, it would be a bigger help. We could possibly meet and fish and provide “hands on” help for you.
Nope, hungNtree no matter how much you spend on a flyrod you will encounter this situation, i use paraffin wax like for canning peaches.
Buy a toilet bowl wax ring for 99 cents or $1.97 from Home DePOT…POT…toilet bowl ring…oh well
not kiddin about buying the toilet bowl ring. You will never run out of ferrule lube nor dubbing wax
Gemrod
Welcome aboard! Like many of the others I use parrifin wax. Stay away from soy wax. It is a much softer wax and will clog the ferrules in no time. There is a product (or two) on the market called ferrule lube. Comes in a small bottle that will fit in your vest. You just brush it on.
As others have said all rods will come apart if you don’t wax them. However I do have a really cheep Flueger 5/6 wt 3 piece rod that is worse for this than my other rods. I only use this mostly for casting practice in the yard, however in the rare case I use this for fishing I have to wax it every several hours or the end will come off again. When I go fishing I bring a bag with wax, a couple tools, a first aid kit, and bunch of other odds and ends I don’t want to carry with me into the water but also don’t want to leave at home.
If you haven’t gotten waiters yet your probably gonna want to learn how to rollcast, which you can really only practice on water. As far as waiters you can get some really cheep ones from one of the big chain sporting good stores. You might only get one or two seasons out of them but you can upgrade later without breaking the bank now for something you haven’t tried yet.
hungNtree
You have received the correct answer, so I am posting to welcome you to one of the best places on the net. Nubies bring the coffee and donuts.
Don’t forget to check all of the great articles on casting under the features section on the main page.
What part of Tennessee are you from? If you are close to Tullahoma, there are a couple of good guys there that will give you all the advise that you need.
Again, welcome and enjoy the ride,
Brad
I wasn’t expecting so many replies so fast, I appreciate it. That lets me know I am at the right web site. At least until I bore all of you with all my questions;) I hope to get out tomorrow and give it a try. The weatherman talks like tomorrow is going to be rough, but my wife says she is decorating for Christmas tomorrow, so come rain, snow, sleet, or hail, I need to find something to do outside. I live in Lafayette, they tell me the Caney Fork or the Oboe river is the best places to go close by. I have read about a “bow and arrow” cast? It was suppose to be good where there isn’t much room, I think. Anyway, the creeks around close are to grown up with brush and trees for good fly casting. (Not that I can cast good or anything) Does anyone know anything about that kind of cast? I have read about the roll cast, but I haven’t gotten it to work. I use to duck hunt, so I have waders, but I haven’t tried the roll cast in the water yet. Thanks again for all of the quick replies.
As far as rollcasting, if you start off around ankle deep water you’re going to want to get 15’ to 20’ line pulled off the tip of your rod. Bring the rod to 12 O’clock position slowly and let the line sag back just behind your ear (it’s important that it sags back or it won’t roll properly), then power forward. This is a really basic way to rollcast but it will get you started, if you haven’t you should get a video on casting. Rollcasting a floating line is easy (in fact I can rollcast farther than I can forward casting), big thing thogh like all fly casting is timing. Rollcasting a sink tip or a full sink line is much harder and I don’t recommened you trying it until you get comfortable with the floating line.
[LEFT]Welcome hungNtree,
To do a roll cast you pretty much need to be on the water, and you can’t really learn it while practice casting on the lawn. I mean, you can learn the motion, but you won’t really see the result. When the line is out in front of you on the water then point your rod at 45 degrees or so towards the fly, take in the slack so the line is straight-ish, now raise the rod and point the tip slightly behind you - just enough to pull the line along the surface and as Ironhead mentioned, form a D behind you (the straight edge is the rod, the curve is the line from the tip, sagging down and out in front of you). Now quickly bring the rod forward and stop it (i.e. punch forward, and as JC puts it, whack the spider - meaning pretend the rod is a large fly swatter and you are hitting a spider with the tip end - that’s the motion you want to use). Your hand is probably going to move a whole 6 inches forward. This should get the line to roll out in front of you.
It’s the surface tension of the water that creates the resistance to load the rod that throws the line to make the cast on the river that Jack built… ooops, got carried away there. 
This is why trying to roll cast on a lawn doesn’t work so well. The line just slips on the grass and doesn’t load the rod. It’s like trying to cast forward on the first forward motion with all your line off the reel and laying at your feet. Not satisfying!
Also, you need to do the whole cast in one motion, don’t “form the D”, then pause as you will then lose all the force you’ve built up. You need to use the force! The roll cast is a very good cast to learn.
- Jeff[/LEFT]
I hope you don’t get tired of my questions, but you have all been a big help. I practiced casting some this evening. Ever so often, I cast and all my line piles up out in front of me, rather than a good straight cast. I have tried to figure out what I am doing wrong, so it doesn’t become a habit, but so far I can’t tell any difference between casts. Is there any particular thing I am doing wrong? About one out of 4 casts piles up on me, and normally I’ll do the same thing a couple of times in a row, but I just can’t figure out why. I thought maybe I was stopping my forward motion of my rod to far forward, but I am not sure.
Thanks,
Jason
Welcome hungNtree !!! If you are caught on stream without any wax, use what my Dad called Nose Grease (Facial oils around the nose or even forehead) !!!
HungNTree,
The line piled up in a bunch at your feet happens from time to time.
One thing I would highly recommend is to go to the flyanglers online home page and click on the fly fishing basics link. There is a TON of really critical information there. One of the best things that happened as I was learning to fly fish.
As for your immediae problem, its most likely either not stopping abruptly enough on the back case to on the front cast. Without actually seeing you cast, it’s nearly impossible for me to tell. There are some expert casters here who may have some better advise but for me, I’d say read everything you can on the basics page and keep on asking questions here.
The guys here know that I asked my fair share of questions when I was getting started. Since then, I"ve watched a lot of guys come here asking questions only to, a few months later, see a picture of them smiling holding up a very large fish.
Jeff