Redneck Fishing Rod Repair

There was a first class scum bag that moved out of one of my father's commercial buildings a month or so ago.  He left behind approximately 12 tons of junk and included in this junk were two fishing rods.

 See?  I told you they were fishing rods.

More specifically, they are two broken fishing rods.  The tips are broken off. See?

Now, what are two broken fishing rods good for?  They're certainly good for whacking things such as weeds, grasshoppers, stray pets, unruly children, the teenager that you catch naked in your bedroom with your wife, basically anything that needs to be whacked, a fishing rod will probably do an adequate job on.  But broken fishing rods are also good for fishing.  All you need to do is to repair them.

Now they sell a little kit for repairing rod tips.  I know that Bass Pro Shops has them and probably Walmart does also.  And I think they cost around $5.00.  Well, I didn't want to drive 15 miles to

Bass Pro and I didn't want to spend $5.00 on repairing these two rods.  One of them is a brand that I have never even heard of.  Could there be some other way of fixing up these two poles?  Is it possible to get them back into action without spending $5.00?

                                                       Of course there is.  And electricity is the answer. 

                                      Huh? How is electricity going to fix those two fishing rods?

See these?  They are the secret.

  I do not know exactly what it is that these are called but they are some type of electrical connectors.  They are probably called ring terminals or something like that and they can be found at any Automotive Supply, hardware store, RadioShack or possibly even Walmart.  Many wiring kits will have some of these included or you could buy a package of a few of them all by themselves.  I found these two somewhere in my father's toolbox.  They come in different sizes, all you have to do is to find one that fits over the end of your rod.

Ordinarily you would slip a piece of electrical wire into the colored part of this terminal and crimp it into place but in this case we slipped the end of a fishing rod into it and crimped it.  I wanted to make sure that it never came off so we used gorilla glue also.

This lovely yellow one is the only one we had that fit over the end of this fishing rod.  We did not have one big enough to fit over the end of the other fishing rod.  So we cut it off even with the next rod guide, filled the tip full of guerrilla glue to strengthen it and when it was dried, we ground off the rough edges and smoothed it out a bit.

  This fishing rod ended up losing a bit of length but it should still work OK.  Although some women will tell you differently,  an extra few inches is usually not necessary.  Desirable perhaps, but not absolutely necessary.

Here is a better view.  Now, this wiring terminal is metal.  And your fishing line will be going through the middle of it, hopefully being yanked on by a 12 pound bass at some point in the future.  Will this metal not cut through the fishing line, losing your trophy?  No.  It will not.

Why?  Because I have coated this metal with a layer of elmer's glue.  Then I waited for it to dry and coated it again.  There should be no sharp edges left on the metal for it to cut through the fishing line.

OK then.  So now we have a fishing rod that is functional but is very homely looking.  Is that correct?

Damn straight.  But it will work.  And it is a cheap repair.  And if you're out in the boonies and your fishing rod breaks, you do not wish to drive to Wal-Mart or to Bass Pro or if you do not have one of them in the neighborhood, you can make a quick fix and keep on fishing.

Here it is in the final form.  We spray painted the last 6 inches of the fishing rod white so that it will show up easily in the evening or at night.

Fish on!