Go to the lamiglas factory and buy one of the rods from their show room, these ARE the benchmark oregon and washington steelhead rods, they have them for around $100- $150 second I would suggest an okuma sst steelhead series, Ive had one ive fished spoons excusively with for a year, this is a good 2 year rod but won't last longer, even alaska airlines couldn't break it. Ugly sticks are the poormans sage.. they are the toughest graphite rods in the world, but at the cost of tip sensetivety, you shouldn't have broken those tips off, the tip that broke as you reeled was a result of you ( berkley tests every tip before it ships ) nicking the blank during your time in the field or at home and it broke when the right pressure from the right direction was applied while reeling. It is unfair to blame the broken tip on the manufacturer.
New fishermen are hard on gear and must learn the things on expensive rods that a lot of us learned on $20 k-mart combos.. so rod damage is certain to happen in the proccess, even to $75-$600 rods, especially the $600 ones.. please be kind to the manufacturers, after all they have the balls to think they can build a long skinny stick that gets weaker as it goes that they actually want you to hook something living that weights 20 lbs or more, and then we kill em with snags, car doors, dogs, fall on them, step on em, use them to spread branches or try stupid moves to unhook spinners and spoons we can almost get to.. but just can't.... snap
If you drive over to your father or grandfathers home and open his garage behind the door you will find roughly 20 fiberglass rods, the handles will be broke, guides may be missing... but the tip is still there, mabe smashed flat, but still there.
It would be highly unlikely to go to the garage of a 45-50 yr old and find anything but a bunch of graphite rods, stunning grips, nickle plated guides, fancy names on them, probably even in their own tubes... all missing 4 inches of tip.... graphite is a weak inferior material used to achieve sensetivety, action, and light weight, all things demanded by the current market of fisher persons.. the manufacurers have met those demands, now its our part to be professional about the use of the gear.. and protect the tip.. mind your tip.. wheres your tip!? and just for good measure.. by far the most common mistake I see made that will result in a broken tip is putting a rod in the bed of a pickup truck and letting the tip ride in the slot of the tailgate... you might as well just walk back and snap it off on the spot. so in short:lol: I think Buzz R rods suck and would never use one.. others adore them.. go buy a lami.... and protect the tip like its a child.
