TackleTour

Was bank fishing tonight and got a 1/6oz mushroom head stuck in a nearby tree. I tried to gently rip it free a few times and that didn't work, so I grabbed the rod a bit further up and gave it one good rip. The head came free and, as chance would have it, flew right back at the rod, hit the blank, and cracked it. I heard a good snap sound and thought I had to have hit something for sure. Well, RIP my Expride. Will engage Shimano support tomorrow. Thankfully I did catch some fish with my other rod, including a PB pike that lunged out of the water at my spinnerbait.

bwjay wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 10, 2019 6:34 pm

Was bank fishing tonight and got a 1/6oz mushroom head stuck in a nearby tree. I tried to gently rip it free a few times and that didn't work, so I grabbed the rod a bit further up and gave it one good rip. The head came free and, as chance would have it, flew right back at the rod, hit the blank, and cracked it. I heard a good snap sound and thought I had to have hit something for sure. Well, RIP my Expride. Will engage Shimano support tomorrow. Thankfully I did catch some fish with my other rod, including a PB pike that lunged out of the water at my spinnerbait.

Oh man...bwjay-Welcome to the board, I have really enjoyed reading your posts and hope you stick around and keep contributing. It's hard not to feel empathy towards your recent fishing trials and tribulations, we have all been there at some point, to some degree. I think you have had enough bad luck in the past month for the bunch of us. I wouldn't want you as my sherpa if I ever tried Mount Everest. If things keep going in this direction, may I suggest you taking up needlepoint (blunt nose).

jkjk..there is always light at the end of the tunnel, just hope it's not a train!

Ha! I swear I am never this reckless with any of my other expensive hobby items... I have learned some expensive lessons in the last month though, that is for sure. I guarantee I'll always put a reel glove on my reels in transit no matter how hot it is outside, I guarantee I won't ever try to hook a frog on the front of my reels again, and I can almost guarantee if I get anything stuck in a tree again, I'm going to let out some line and pull it with my hands and stay out of the way while wearing glasses just in case it comes flying at me.

Yeah.... broke the Expride.... but hey I got my $1 bait back!

I appreciate the words of encouragement. I'm gonna be more careful going forward but this definitely won't stop me from fishing. I'm having too much fun doing it.

Yeah, man, no bait is worth a rod. That's a bummer. That's what scares me about tungsten flipping weights. Wouldn't expect it from a ned rig, though.

poisonokie wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:53 pm

Yeah, man, no bait is worth a rod. That's a bummer. That's what scares me about tungsten flipping weights. Wouldn't expect it from a ned rig, though.

Well I only needed it to happen once... wish it didn't have to happen at all. I've pulled baits out of trees a dozen times so far but this one really takes the cake. Won't be happening again if I can help it. All I can hope is that Shimano chooses to honor the warranty. I am afraid they will say I was doing something obviously stupid and that it's not "normal usage". Now I gotta find some poster shipping tube to send it to them.

I'll usually try to give the rod a few pops to see if that will free it, which works a lot of the time, but if it doesn't come down pretty quickly I go to plan B. If I have to climb that tree, so be it. If that's not a possibility, I break it off by hand and go on. I see guys getting pretty crazy with their rods trying to get baits out of trees and it's a wonder that doesn't happen more often.

If it makes you feel better..I've bore the brunt of bad fishing juju. Fishing out of my flats boat, alone, I managed to get a big Zara Spook stuck in a mangrove, instead of taking the easy route and just going to retrieve it, I did the dummy and yanked the bejusus out of it. Sure enough it dislodged from the tree and it made what seemed like a 90 mph return in my direction. Not bieng able to float like a butterfly, I ended up getting stung like a bee, actually way worse than a bee. The top trebles secured to my ear, the bottom trebles secured to my collar bone area. Positioning me in a Steven Hawkings sort of way. I had to make a 1 mile slow ride in a 1-2ft chop back to the boat ramp, in that position. Fortunatly there was only one person at the ramp when I arrived and he could see that I was in some sort of bizzare distress. More fortune that he had a sharp pair of wire cutters and knew how to use them. I'm not sure I can list all of the things I learned that day, but I am sure the list would be long.

Crappy luck. Shimano will replace it for 50% of MSRP.

http://www.gloomis.com/content/dam/shim ... -Final.pdf

Ouch. Stop casting into the trees !

bumdraino

I had a 1/2 oz jig come flying back at me and hit my Helium 3, I couldn't find an issue. I would have rather been hit by my jig than hear the god awful noise when it hit the rod.

What rotten luck! It's amazing how fast a bait can come back at you in that situation. I'd be surprised if you're unable to use the Shimano replacement program.

Ugh... I had to buy a $15 shipping tube because even when broken, it's 53 inches long, and all of the free shipping tubes from USPS and UPS max out around 36-38". Shimano says if you break the rod to ship it they can't guarantee coverage, and I'd have to break it even further up than the start of the handle in order to fit it in one of those free tubes. I still have to pay to ship it too, probably gonna cost me $15. Sigh..... continuing to feel the pain of this mistake. Man I hope they don't refuse to cover it.

I learned something here. I never would have thought this could happen. I'll definitely be more mindful in the future.

LowRange wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 14, 2019 12:57 pm

I learned something here. I never would have thought this could happen. I'll definitely be more mindful in the future.

Ha, well I'm glad others can learn from my mistakes. I got a Senko stuck in a tree yesterday and made sure to pull the line down with my hands and gently removed it from the branch, which thankfully was low enough that I could reach it. Oh the joys of bank fishing...