July 31, 2017
By Mud Hole Staff
See the importance of understanding modulus and find out why this knowledge is key to unlocking the ultimate performance in your high-modulus fishing rods.
Improving Performance and Value with High-Modulus Fishing Rods
When it comes to misunderstandings and misconceptions, there are many rumors that harm the image of high-modulus fishing rods. Debunking these myths is crucial to rod builders because these high-modulus rods bring superior sensitivity, durability, and performance out on the water.
Clearing up misconceptions, clarifying performance advantages and discussing proper care, here's everything you need to know about fishing with high-modulus rod blanks.
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—Achieve Same Stiffness with Less Weight
First things first, what does modulus even mean?
Modulus is essentially referring to stiffness. For example, the higher the modulus rating, the stiffer the material is by weight.
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Meaning, there is less material used to get the same stiffness as a lower modulus material. This makes high-modulus rod blanks equally as stiff, while sharply reducing the blank's overall weight.
—Feel the Responsiveness
Naturally, the modulus and stiffness bring responsiveness into play. The responsiveness of a rod blank comes from the blank's ability to store energy and then release it.
The relationship between modulus and responsiveness is as follows, the higher the modulus, the faster and more consistent the rod can store and release energy. For fishing, this means anglers will cast more efficiently and accurately with high-modulus rods.
—Upgrade the Strain Rate
When talking about modulus, it's also important to understand strain rate. Strain rate measures the strength of the material, which has come a long way since the first high-modulus fishing rod.
In the beginning of graphite blanks, the development and performance of higher modulus rods became overshadowed by the inability to achieve a higher strain rate to match. Without an increased strain rate, high-modulus rod blanks were brittle and this brittleness led to rod failure time after time.
Although this marks the origin of thinking that high-modulus rods are weaker, this happened over forty years ago and today, the strain rates in high-modulus rods measure in for a much different story. Through advancements in material, technology, and manufacturing, the standard for strain rates has improved to complement modulus rather than sacrifice it.
Today's high modulus, high-strain-rate rods are super light and responsive, while also incredibly strong and sensitive to give anglers a superior performance that just takes a little more understanding to unleash.
—Durability and Maintenance
Despite the rumors, high-modulus fishing rods rarely ever break under normal use. Sure, high-modulus rod blanks have thinner walls, but as explained above, higher strain rates strengthen these walls to disprove any lingering doubts of durability while fishing.
While extremely durable on the water, these blanks are still susceptible to damage from abuse. From getting stepped on and smacked on hard surfaces, to incorrectly storing and boat flipping, abuse is by far the leading cause of rod failure for high-modulus blanks.
Although it may seem like your high-modulus rod broke on the water, the underlying damage likely happened long before that fatal cast. Most abuse-type damage will be hard to spot, but these circumstances can cause the rod to collapse.
The best advice for protecting high-modulus rods is to properly store and transport the rod, and always avoid any boat-flipping or high-sticking on the water.
Catch the Performance of MHX High-Modulus Blanks
Boosting sensitivity and strength for a better overall high-performance rod blank, high-modulus fishing rods are taking the professional circuits and weekend anglers by storm.
MHX is the only brand to engineer high-modulus one-piece blanks that boost fishing performance through the ultimate balance of sensitivity and strength on the water.
Get your grip on the high-quality construction and the performance driven design of MHX High-Modulus Rods today to get a feel for fishing like never before!