Leverage |
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The idea of this article is to dismiss the myth of hook pulls in relation to carp rod actions and to better understand what happens at 'the opposite end of the stick'. We will be focusing on carp rod actions only as things do get very complex when you talk of match rods and very small hook causing the 'bumping off' situation which add complication, so it's carp rods only for the sake of the article. I'm going to refer to,
'through action', 'players action', and 'soft action' as
just 'soft action''. Also this article will concentrate on the playing side of rod actions and not on the casting side of things. The two are 'opposite ends of the stick'. We all know that soft action carp rods are best for playing, as they are more forgiving, put less pressure on the hook hold so reduce the chances of a hook pull, that's true isn't it ? Wrong, wrong and wrong again. It might feel that way to you but not to Mr Carp. Hook pulls happen for many
reason, but nearly all stem around the fact that the hook
didn't have a good hold in the first place, obviously,
otherwise it would of stayed in, and nothing to do with
the rods action. When that hook is home nothing short of
forceps will get it out. We can all be a bit like Mr Sheep at times. Someone say something, usually based on a theory they have which they believe to be true based on what they reckon and with no real proof. They tell somebody and they tell others and before you know it its fact. Fact based on just and assumption. We all go along like sheep following without question. Those underwater DVDs are fantastic and let us really have a good look at what goes on down there. Lots of what was assumed to be true was found to be false and also with respect to the team that made these wonderful DVDs, a lot of what was commenting on from there observation I and many others I know came to different conclusions. Short of the carp actually telling us what he "spooked off", we can only guess at. I don't like hard assumptions, we should always keep an open mind until thing are proven to be fact. But then we all know that some so called fact can be proven wrong. I digress. We suffer from this misconception about soft action carp rods are soft on the fish because there are soft on the cast and no good for hitting big distances. So as the cast is soft, so must be the play. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. I'm going to try and explain what the hell I'm on about with conclusions drawn up from real experiments seen below with different rod actions using the leverage principles. Note: Hand weight for the sake of this article is amount of force in lbs. on your arm assuming a standard playing position with the hand gripping around the reel and the rod handle running along the forearm.
It's all down to the fact that a softer rod will bend more than a stiff rod for the same amount of weight at the tip. The softer rods tip ends up closer to the hand and giving the affect of being shorter and thus reducing the leverage against you. So it's the opposite of what you think. A stiff action rod puts less pressure on the hook hold than a soft action rod does for the same amount of hand weight. Just out of interest, John Wilson at one of these Fishing shows was testing a fly rods against a carp rod with regards to 'pulling power' and asked the crowd which one would pull harder and they all went for the carp rod, but you guessed it, the fly rod won. It's all to do with leverage. Tight lines and good bending. Mark Tunley. Section taken from the Friday 23rd January 2009 Blog by Steve Harrison I am sure most of you will know that a rod that bends and has shorter effective leverage length can be used to put more turning power on a fish compared to a stiff fast taper rod, as long as it has enough bottom end stiffness to control that power and give a sense of feel, of control. |
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