Nothing is more annoying than having a rod that you can’t use because the tip guide is broken, but all of the other guides are fine. The good news is that replacing a broken or worn out rod tip is relatively easy. What’s not always easy is finding the correct size rod tip. I took some time one afternoon to replace the rod tips on a couple of my bayfishing rods, using a package of replacement tips that I bought at Academy, like this one:
I quickly discovered that every rod tip in the package was too big for my rods, which have quite narrow tips. I didn’t have a caliper to measure my rod tips before purchase, and most folks don’t own one. I know that they are too big because 1) there is too much play when I fit them onto the rod, and 2), they were larger in diameter than the old tips that I removed.
This was quite frustrating, since something that should be simple had become complicated. As a short term fix, I wrapped some rod thread around the end of the blank to eat up the extra space, then I took the smallest tip from the package and glued it over the thread. This was OK for a short term fix, but it felt half-ass and I still wanted to find the correct size rod tip.
Not wanting to spend too much, I bought this package of rod tips on Amazon:
It has a large assortment of tips, including a range of smaller sizes. With this package, I was able to find the correct size tips and fixed both of my bay rods in just a few minutes.
I generally don’t like buying these “overseas” brands off Amazon, but I wasn’t finding too many great options, and it is likely that most new rods available at the store (at least the less expensive ones) have cheaper guides on them anyway. We’ll see how these hold up.
I recommend keeping an assortment of rod tips on hand, similar to the one I bought. This way, if you discover right before a fishing trip that one of your rod tips is broken, you can be confident that you have the right size on hand for an easy fix.
Have a reel good day,
– The Simple Fisherman