An All Travel Rod Trip to Lake of the Woods

For the first time since we went to Africa in 2016, Hanna and I fished an entire trip with nothing but travel rods. We brought two Sage Ballistic Rod Tubes to Ballard’s Black Island on Lake of the Woods last week, and used the multi-piece rods inside of them to conquer seven or eight different species of fish – everything from yellow perch to muskies. Smallmouths were our primary focus and we caught a near 25 pound limit on our third full day.

The Good

Mostly, this was a quality experience. We were glad that we brought our own rods and we felt that the quality multi-piece sticks served us well. I’d brought five baitcasters and three spinning rods and all of them got used. Once we dialed in a Chatterbait bite the baitcasters got the most playing time, but spinning rods were in the rotation – in fact, Hanna caught a 32” pike on a 35 year-old medium-light spinning rod with 8-lb. test fluorocarbon and a Shad Rap.

I carried my tube on the plane. Hanna checked hers through inside our oversized Snowbee duffel bag. We had no damage to any of the rods in transit.

The ladies each took a liking to one particular rod and effectively refused to give me a chance to use them. For Hanna, it was the Cast Division Beast Stick I’d gotten from Singapore a while back. Jennifer fell in love with the G. Loomis 3-piece medium heavy. I was happy that they found rods that fit them. Neither of those sticks experienced any trouble at all.

The Bad and the Ugly

Two of the rods made the ultimate sacrifice on this trip. On the evening of Day Two, Hanna made a cast with my Falcon Lowrider travel rod and the uppermost section snapped in two. I don’t think it was the rod’s fault. That particular stick had been to Mexico a couple of times and had seen substantial duty around home. It probably had a ding in it somewhere and just chose this time to give up the ghost.

The other rod that suffered was the Monstar Novelty 5-piece medium-heavy that my friend Dennis “Cal” Shew loaned me. On the afternoon of Day Two, I made a cast, my line snapped, my swim jig launched into orbit and the uppermost piece of the rod followed it. Unfortunately, it quickly sank out of sight. Despite what Meatloaf may have had you belief, two out of three is bad when it comes to fishing rods.

Lessons Learned

You frequently see travelers in the airport with thin tubes that hold a single rod. That’s a recipe for disaster. If one of those rods – or one section of one of those rods – were to snap, you’re out of luck for the rest of the trip. Bring a backup or three, especially if you have traveling partners. This trip also made me appreciate the now-discontinued Abu-Garcia Ike rod, which comes with two different top sections. Even if the different actions don’t matter, it’s nice to have a replacement.

I need to come up with some sort of system for regularly checking to make sure that the ferrules are sealed. That’s not a problem with the Cast Division or the fun-to-fish five-piece spinning rod from Legit Design, but some of the others caused an occasional surprise. Maybe I need to find some sort of substance to hold the sections together (ferrule wax?), or just find a way to remind myself to check them more regularly. You don’t want to lose a section into the drink the way that I did, nor do you want the whole thing to turn into a giant dumpster fire while fighting the fish of a lifetime.