If you’re headed out to fish a local piece of water, there’s often no need to bring your rod in a tube – rod tubes are bombproof, but they’re also clunky to carry and pack, they make you take the reel off your rod, and they’re totally overkill if you’re just hopping in your car. Taking your rod along in its sock (the fabric divider that goes inside the rod tube) can work, but getting the sock loaded and tied is an extra step, and the fabric often winds up wet at the end of the day.
For local fishing, really all you need is something that keeps the pieces of your rod together. It turns out there’s a whole category of products that fit the bill perfectly. They’re cheap and varied and you can buy them even in most convenience stores. Enter girls’ hair ties!
For 6 Year Old Girls, And You
It turns out that the diameter of a girl’s pony tail is nearly identical to the diameter of the average broken-down fly rod bundle. Hair ties are designed to be used by a 6 year old girl with no view of the situation and both hands behind her head – if you find them hard to manipulate you’d better go see your doctor. As an added bonus, hair ties come in all kinds of zany colors and patterns which make it easy to spot your rod in that pile of gear, and they give your buddies plenty of material for campfire ‘compliments’.
As opposed to ties that are really just coated rubber bands, we prefer hair ties that have a ball or knot attached to act as a stopper – you can just loop the tie around the sections of your rod, pass the stopper through, pull tight and you’re done. Your corner store probably has them – here’s a zany option if you’re looking for visibility and conversation fodder
That is a great tip. I have used big rubber bands to do this for years, but they always wear out and break at the most inconvenient times. Carrying extras in my pack has been a pain, they get tangled with other stuff. ZI am ging to give this a try !!
I use half inch wide double sided Velcro to do the same thing. And store it behind the double locking rings on the reel seat while I use the rod.
this is a funny article to me as it reminds of my girlfriend Deborah Rzyzora who was handing me pink hair elastics to tie up my One 7126 while we fished the Skeena system this Fall. I was hoping none of my buddies would notice these pink elastics around the butt of the rod! But yeah, they do work great although next time here’s hoping Deb has some black ones for me!
I like to use velcro straps. They hold the rod in my chest caddy as well when I’m moving. Pete.
if you run the hair loop through the kind of spring loaded clamp that you use on back pack drawstrings, it get even easier to use these. “lasso” the rod pieces, compress the clamp plunger, and cinch down on the rod pieces.