So I went bass fishing yesterday and hooked into a 5-8lb blue channel catfish. Thought it was a bass until I noticed how he was dead weight and kept staying near the bottom. I was running 40lb braid, drag was tight but enough for him to pull a bit of drag. I kind of horsed him in kept a lot of pressure on the rod. Mh casting rod. How much pressure is too much. Can doing this ruin a fishing rod or does it take much more than that?

1 minute ago, Jonny15678 said:

So I went bass fishing yesterday and hooked into a 5+ blue channel catfish. Thought it was a bass until I noticed how he was dead weight and kept staying near the bottom. I was running 40lb braid, drag was tight but enough for him to spool me a bit. I kind of horsed him in kept a lot of pressure on the rod. Mh casting rod. How much pressure is too much. Can doing this ruin a fishing rod or does it take much more than that?

A small catfish can't generate enough force to damage a MH stick without angler error. As long as you are loading the rod properly and using the butt section to fight the fish, it should be a short fight, and if he "almost spooled you" your drag wasn't that tight.

3 minutes ago, BassWhole! said:

A small catfish can't generate enough force to damage a MH stick without angler error. As long as you are loading the rod properly and using the butt section to fight the fish, it should be a short fight, and if he "almost spooled you" your drag wasn't that tight.

He might have even been 8lbs he was big, I did use the but end I just feel like I should have played him more. And he didn’t spool me but towards the end he was pulling a bit of drag.

Depending on how high end of a rod you are using, you need to be careful about “high sticking” a fish like that during a fight. It could fatigue the blank if not outright break. Lost one last year after fighting a large double digit carp with too high a hold and pressure on the upper end (I know better, too ??). Didn’t break on the carp, but did a half hour later on a hookset while catching crappie - lol. Lesson learned. Otherwise, no rod issues with large fish just fighting them properly.

2 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Depending on how high end of a rod you are using, you need to be careful about “high sticking” a fish like that during a fight. It could fatigue the blank if not outright break. Lost one last year after fighting a large double digit carp with too high a hold and pressure on the upper end (I know better, too ??). Didn’t break on the carp, but did a half hour later on a hookset while catching crappie - lol. Lesson learned.

Yeah I wasn’t thinking too much was kind of in the moment thought it was a huge bass.

11 minutes ago, Jonny15678 said:

He might have even been 8lbs he was big, 

We'll in that case, you were lucky to survive the ordeal, and fortunatelly he didn't drag you in and swallow you whole.

Now I gotta go watch a Hannah video and pleasure myself...  

3 minutes ago, BassWhole! said:

We'll in that case, you were lucky to survive the ordeal, and fortunatelly he didn't drag you in and swallow you whole.

Now I gotta go watch a Hannah video and pleasure myself...  

?

21 minutes ago, BassWhole! said:

We'll in that case, you were lucky to survive the ordeal, and fortunatelly he didn't drag you in and swallow you whole.

Now I gotta go watch a Hannah video and pleasure myself...  

On 7/29/2019 at 1:23 PM, Glaucus said:

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