How to fix your broken fishing rod on the water

Quick Fly Rod Repair on the River

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How to fix your broken fishing rod on the waterHow to Repair a Fishing Rod in an Emergency Situation

If you have ever been on the river and experienced a broken fishing rod it can really turn an otherwise perfect day into a day of you watching trout feeding all around while your rod is totally out of commission. This super easy and effective trick will have you hooking trout again in no time flat. This might seem like a really obvious fix, but perhaps this post will at least remind you to keep some tape with you on the water. You just need a little bit of tape for the repair. All types of tape is very effective for fixing broken guides, securing your reel to a broken reel seat and even for a complete rod broken in half. Of course if your rod is broken near the tip you can always just fish with the rod as it is; it won’t feel very good, but it will function and allow you to catch more fish.

Fixing Broken or Missing Guides:

You can make a snake style guide easily out of a paper clip or even a pop can tab as demonstrated on this fly rod made from a willow branch. Bending a paperclip will surely be a little more long term repair because it will simulate your original guide much better and have less resistance on the line. Simply secure it with the tape and you are back in business!

Repairing a broken fly fishing rod
A few strips of tape and you will be back to casting. Be sure to overlap the rod quite a bit to support the weight of all of those huge trout.

A Completely Broken Rod Repair

In this video I not only show you how to fix your rod, but I even catch a little trout to demonstrate it’s effectiveness.

A serious problem like this calls for a serious fix, Duct tape works great, electrical tape is nice and as you will see in the video below; even clear scotch tape works well. Just put a few strips of tape along the broken area.

Tips:

  • Be sure to overlap the rod pieces by at least 6-8 inches. Keep in mind that all of the weight of your casting line and fish are focused on the first piece of tape, so go light to allow for movement and flexing (in my opinion).
  • Cover the very ends of the joint of the two pieces of rod, otherwise your fly line can get caught in the crack between the pieces.

Summary

Of course there will be instances where this emergency fly rod repair wont fix your rod, but overall this tactic has saved me on a few fishing trips and works quite well.