how to rate a fishing rod

[alantani]

Hi Alan.
Greetings from New Zealand.
I have a 6ft 6in vintage rod with fully rollered mildrum guides.It appears to have a wooden blank.A wooden butt with black foam foregrip.
There are no identifying marks at all.
The reel seat has no markings.
Was hoping you may shed some light on this.
Have enclosed a couple of photos.
Kind regards.
John

john, good afternoon and greetings from california!  i am not familiar with this rod. with no markings, it would most likely be a custom wrap.  because of its age, it is also likely an all fiberglass stick.  these will "soften" over time, so even the original line ratings might not be accurate.

there is a way to find the working load limit for any rod, but it does involve some risk.  what i do is place a rod at an upward angle of 45 degrees, bracing the rod at the butt and the end of the foregrip.  with heavy line on the reel and the line running through the guides, i would then add weight until the rod tip is pulled down until the tip is halfway between the top of the arc and the bottom of the rod butt.  whatever the weight turns out to be, that would be the drag setting at strike that i would use for the reel that goes on that rod. 

as an example, let's say that it takes 30 pounds of weight to make the rod tip heel over until the tip is halfway between the top of the arc and the bottom of the butt.  that means i would choose a reel with 30 pounds of drag at strike.  i typically use a 30% drag setting.  a "100 pound line class" reel with a 100 pound topshot of mono would have a drag of 30 pounds at strike.  so then i would call this a "100 pound line class" rod.  that's how i would rate a rod.

of course, you also might break it in half!  maybe it's a better live mystery than a dead certainty.  you could just clean it up and hang it on the wall.  good luck!!!  alan

[alantani]

to add another layer, i also look a the rod tip to say how fast it is.  with dead weight hanging with the rod butt at 45 degrees and the rod tip halfway between the top of the arc and the bottom of the but, i measure the degrees of the the rod tip from vertical.  if the rod tip is zero to 5 degrees, it's extra slow.  5-10 degrees is slow.  10-15 degrees is medium, 15-20 is fast and 20-25 is extra fast.  i would generally not want to fish a rod that is greater than 25 degrees.