Playing fish with two hands on the rod

[Jon Hedges]

Jesus, I remember why I dropped physics all those years ago. Was this law in force then ?

 

Balanced tackle + experienced angler + pressure imparted by tackle = landed fish ???

[GlennB]

StuMac:

How on earth anyone who calls themselves a scientist can think that shorter lever = greater force is beyond me.

Stu - I think you're misrepresenting the point a bit.

"Greater force" has 2 meanings here - the force being exerted (by the fish) and the efficiency of your resistance (by your muscles via the rod).

Shorten the lever - by holding further up the rod - and the force you exert is "greater", in the sense that you improve your efficiency vs the pull of the fish.

 

If anyone mentions "mechanical advantage" or "velocity ratio" I'm gonna take up cycling

[GlennB]

Can't resist

 

Suppose you have the rod butt jammed in your groin or in a butt cup ... you hold the rod 3" above that point (long lever). You'd be hard pushed to support the weight of the rod, let alone resist the pull of a 10lb fish.

 

Hold the rod 3' above that point and you now have a shorter lever, but can exert much greater force.

 

Cheers

[Nugg]

Sorry old chap, wrong way round 3"=short lever, 3'= longer lever.

 

I can see that there is something in what Peter say's regarding flattening, any tube will only take so much side pressure, that's it's weakest point.

[Peter Waller]

Den, I was talking early days re the flattening of the tube principle, and subsequant compression fractures. And as I also said things have moved on since then. As to whether it was proven or not I don't know. It was the explanation given me by the East Anglian Rod Company, in their day a leading company.

 

It seemed a reasonable explanation to my non engineeering mind. I also remember discussions in the angling press on the same matter. Which came first, the crumpling of the resin, or the flannening of the tube, I would have thought, back then, was hard to prove. Walker was an engineer of mean ability, a man with a questioning mind. But lets not forget, it was early days in the development, testing and understanding of fibre-glass rod making.

 

I think Andy's question was not unreasonable, it set the old grey matter going, and is hardly an issue worth falling out over. Personally I found it an interesting suggestion. The whole thing is vaguely linked to a rod's action 'dying', when the tube goes oval.

[Peter Waller]

Peter Sharpe:

"Shorter lever = greater force = controlled fish. "

 

Does this mean that all tournament casters would achieve greater distances with five foot rods?

After all, the shorter the lever, the greater the force.

Interesting that you should ask that! As a youth, 'cause reels weren't much cop back then, we used to cast off the beach with five foot long casting poles. We tried longer jobs but five foot worked best. We would walk the line up the beach 75 paces and then back to the water's edge, laying out about 150 paces/yards of line. The line had a one inch thimble set in it about four feet from the lead. The thimble went over a nail in the end of the casting pole. The cast was a pretty athletic affair but we could easily exceed 100 yards and often hit 150. I remember Leslie Moncrief, the casting expert of the day, having to work very hard beating some of the pole boys. His expensive gear against their minimal cost poles!

 

Leslie developed the reverse tapered handle on a beach caster. Much of his effort was absorbed by loading the rod. With a beach pole all the effort went into propelling the lead.

 

I have often wondered why deadbaiters don't use poles. A rod that is good for lobbing out a pound of dead mackeral can't be much good at landing a pike!

 

I thought Peter Sharpes appraisal very interesting.

 

[ 06. April 2004, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

[StuMac]

GlennB:

GlennB:

How on earth anyone who calls themselves a scientist can think that shorter lever = greater force is beyond me.

Stu - I think you're misrepresenting the point a bit.

"Greater force" has 2 meanings here - the force being exerted (by the fish) and the efficiency of your resistance (by your muscles via the rod).

Shorten the lever - by holding further up the rod - and the force you exert is "greater", in the sense that you improve your efficiency vs the pull of the fish.

 

If anyone mentions "mechanical advantage" or "velocity ratio" I'm gonna take up cycling

Not sure what you mean here, but I suppose from the fish's point of view the tip of the rod is the 'effort' and you're applying the load.

 

If you look at it that way, by moving your hand up the rod, you're increasing the moment arm of the load and so increasing the force. However, no matter how you look at it, you cannot exert more force by shortening a lever.

[Andy Macfarlane]

So it would seem there is little or no danger of a breakage with todays carbons and composites? Cheers. All I wanted to know.

[Peter Waller]

That's it in a nutshell Andy!!

[The Diamond Geezer]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Andy Macfarlane:

 

So it would seem there is little or no danger of a breakage with todays carbons and composites?

---

Andy,

 

As someone who in my more technical youth was involved in the development of carbon-fibre and PMCs, I'm not sure that that's entirely true ... especially for anglers using high-BS braids and with their drags set more than a tad too tight

 

Obviously the accuracy of the mandrel design for the blanks and, in the preparation of the blank itself, the quality-control of the wall-thickness of the pre-preg tape wrap is crucial ..... and when you look at the number of broken rods that I have done (in tackle-shop graveyards), you'd be shocked to see the variations in wall-thickness, and hence, the number of resultant breakages.

 

DG

 

[ 06. April 2004, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: The Diamond Geezer ]