Old Rod?

[slurm]

Hi all,

I was going through the old fishing gear in the shed and found an old rod that belongs to my dad. It's made by Shakespeare, but aside from that I have zero clue about any of the capacity. The photo attached shows the only print on the whole stick, I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea to what it means. I understand it's 10 foot, is 2 piece and has a wooden butt.  The last thing I want to do is load it up and snap my dads gear.

I sent a message to the manufacturer and they couldn't tell me jack.

Cheers

Edited April 9, 2019 by slurm

[frankS]

Can't help you with details but that is NOT an OLD rod, looks to be a fairly nice bit of gear and if all eyes etc are OK it would be all right to use. Shakespeare built some nice gear.

Frank

[Green Hornet]

Looks like a rod from around the late 80's to me.

If you can't find any info, there's 2 things you could do. Firstly, put a reel on it, run the line through the guides and attach the line to a spring scale. With the help of a mate put a nice bend in the rod and read the scale to see what weight its pulling. Double that weight and that's an indication of the maximum line rating. Of course you can go heavier line, but keep that scale weight in mind when setting your drag.

Secondly, grab a few different weight sinkers or metal lures, take it somewhere and cast it starting with light weight and work your way up until you feel the rod getting kind of sloppy and hard to cast accurately. That would be the limit of weight it will handle.

Graphite composite rods from back then were pretty tough.

[Berleyguts]

Does it have a clear tip? It sounds like an Ugly Stick. Some of them had a BWS prefix but I can’t tell you what the “2000” means. Best thing is to pick a reel that feels balanced with it and load it up with line and test it on the scales as Green Hornet suggested. Or take it to a good tackle store and get them to recommend a reel and line b/s etc.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Berleyguts

[slurm]

9 hours ago, Green Hornet said:

Looks like a rod from around the late 80's to me.

If you can't find any info, there's 2 things you could do. Firstly, put a reel on it, run the line through the guides and attach the line to a spring scale. With the help of a mate put a nice bend in the rod and read the scale to see what weight its pulling. Double that weight and that's an indication of the maximum line rating. Of course you can go heavier line, but keep that scale weight in mind when setting your drag.

Secondly, grab a few different weight sinkers or metal lures, take it somewhere and cast it starting with light weight and work your way up until you feel the rod getting kind of sloppy and hard to cast accurately. That would be the limit of weight it will handle.

Graphite composite rods from back then were pretty tough.

Thanks for the tip. I have a few hours to tinker in the coming days and will see what I can come up with

[slurm]

9 hours ago, Berleyguts said:

Does it have a clear tip? It sounds like an Ugly Stick. Some of them had a NWS prefix but I can’t tell you what the “2000” means. Best thing is to pick steel that feels balanced with it and load it up with line and test it on the scales as Green Hornet suggested. Or take it to a good tackle store and get them to recommend a reel and line b/s etc.

No clear tip, but I did think it was an Ugly Stick at first. I'm gonna take it for a flick this weekend and cannot wait to give it a flick. Thanks for the advice

[savit]

I think 2000 is just one of Ugly Stik rod product lines as I noticed a couple of 2000 Uglies in different lengths for sale in internet.  Here is an old  Fishraider discussion that mentions Ugly Stik 2000 and some others.