"Barbie Rod" question (sorta)

Technically it's not quite a Barbie rod, but it's close...  I have a little 4 1/2' Shakespeare "Sturdy Stick" that dates back a couple of decades when my son was little.  I just put a $10 Wally World special on it and took it out to play with as a flounder rig.  Then I managed to throw it into the water, of course, since I never tied it to the boat.     But, since I got lucky and was able to snag the line with my anchor, I hauled it back in and got it back.  Now the spool is full of 15-lb mono (what I had on hand) instead of 8, which leads in a very roundabout way to my question...

If you have heavy(ish) line on one of these little sticks, are you likely to bust the rod if you hook into a decent sized fish?  The rod says "Medium", it looks like it was rated for 8-12 lbs.  Truth be told, that little thing was so much fun I might just get a better spincast reel on it and use it as a main rig.   

Jim

just watch where you set your drag tension at.

I put 20lb pink braid on my Barbie Rod.  No problem with the rod breaking.  Believe it or not, those little pink zebco spinning reels have one heck of a lot of drag.  I'm guessing it was up around 10lbs of drag.

-Mark-

If you have heavy(ish) line on one of these little sticks, are you likely to bust the rod if you hook into a decent sized fish?  The rod says "Medium", it looks like it was rated for 8-12 lbs.  Truth be told, that little thing was so much fun I might just get a better spincast reel on it and use it as a main rig.

Don't be too enthusiastic when setting the hook, and the rod may survive.  I've used medium-weight ice fishing rods about 20 inches long to catch a lot of big pike and lake trout, including a fair number of lake trout which were over 36 inches long.  But last weekend I was ice fishing with a friend who was using a somewhat lighter ice fishing rod, and he hooked a medium-sized pike, set the hook, and busted the rod right above its handle.

  Hells Fire
  I ran 30 lbs Power pro on my Iron Man pole at ORC last year. It handled fish (though nothing huge) . pulling in a big wad of kelp or two , and hanging up in some UFO.(underwater fuckin' obstacle) more than once. Maybe I should have been using lighter jigs. 3 and 4 oz mostly. And that little pole could throw out quite a good ways when you load it up.

  I think I'll take it out March 14th when lings open in Westport.

Thanks for all the info.  Makes me happy to keep using it 😎

Jim

You can catch big fish with little rods.  Here’s the kind of ice fishing rod I use to fish for lake trout and pike, with a level wind trolling reel loaded with 30 pound braid.



These rods can handle big fish.  Here I am with a 37 inch lake trout.



Here I am with a 30 inch lake trout.



Here are a couple of friends catching a 34 inch lake trout:

With the right line they can handle big fish with ease.  This guy weighed nearly 15 lbs and was big enough for second place at the 2013 ORC.

Bored at work and googled for "Barbie rod", among other links was this video of a guy pulling in a 100 lb blue shark on one... 

Jim