Introduction

A lot of people ask me the question, why are you so interested in casting? What is it that makes you stand for hours and practise “fishing on land”? and my answer to them would be, I like that combination between the thrill on the competition field and that inner feeling and joy each time I hit the target. But there is also another very important factor that is almost a must if you would like to become a good caster and that is my interest in fishing and casting materials. It is definitely to your advantage if you know what you are looking for in a blank, reel and line. It doesn't mean that you need to become a guru to master the art of casting but you will need some basic knowledge.

What features and properties are you then looking for in a rod? It all depends on which type of casting or fishing you are doing. Depending on weight, line or bait the rod must have different type of character. If you are using a stiff rod you will loose the feeling of the rod and if you have gone for a soft rod you will definitely loose some power. When your goal is to throw far you will be looking for a rod that combines the action in the rod with the casters strength, a caster with great power needs a stiffer rod then a caster with less power. This doesn't mean that strength is a necessity for distance, within castingsport the technique is equally important.

If you would like to learn some more about material and how you can build you own rod, we will here do a series about castingsport materials. As you probably understand the basic elements in a fishing rod and a casting rod are very similar, therefore this article can be as interesting for a sport fisherman as for a casting athlete.

Composites

We will start this series by explaining the material and will gradually go in to explaining the building process.

What's not better then to start this series by explaining the fundamental part in a rod, the composite material. A composite is actually a combination of two materials that forms one. The manufacturing method is fairly new compared to more traditional materials, such as steel, aluminium or wood. Nowadays there are many industries who is using composites as a construction material; a few of them are industries such as automotive, aircraft and the pharmaceutical industry. Within sports composites is a vital ingredient for success. It would not be possible to jump 6 meters in pole vault if composites wouldn't have existed. Golf shafts, bicycles and the ice-hockey stick are examples of other products made of composites. Within fishing, composites have been used as a building brick for quite a while. The composite world is always evolving and there are new products popping up every day .