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Recently, I purchased a pair of inexpensive (a $10 each) 13-foot telescopic fishing poles from Cabela's. Dustin recommended this size and mentioned that he uses them with the top section removed (you clip off the bottom cap from the pole and just slip out that section). Before I got the poles, I wasn't sure what he meant. And once I had the poles, I realized that it would be nice to be able to use the pole at a variety of lengths. Poles over 4 or 5 feet are a bit unwieldy. So, for a small or medium tri-string loop, I didn't want to use this pole even with that top section removed. I also have a preference for carrying a minimal amount of gear.

I realized (as probably many others have also realized) that I could rig the poles so that they could be used with no sections extended or any extension extended. I initially thought that I would use tubing that would slip over tip of each section and then wrap the tip with duct tape so that it would fit snugly into the section below. But, I couldn't find tubing of the right size.

Wandering the aisles of a crafts store, I discovered foam sheets (which can be found at just about any craft store). They run less than a $1 per sheet and come in a variety of colors. All that I had to do was cut strips from the sheet and use the strips to create enough thickness that the end of a wrapped pole section could just barely slip into the section below and then add a wrap or two of duct tape (which stands up well to being doused with bubble juice) to make a snug fit so that the section won't fully collapse into the section below.

The foam sheets come in a variety of thicknesses. I found that 2 mm was a great thickness. Thick enough that it doesn't require a lot of wraps but thin enough to be able to have a fairly smooth taper between wraps.

This rigging only adds about 2.5 inches to the length of the fully-collapsed pole and the pole can be used at lengths of approximately, 4, 7.5, 10.5 and 13 feet. The rigging is also easy to remove if you decide that you don't want it.

Here are pictures of my rig. This is somewhat primitively done. I plan on covering it with some black Oogo so that it will look good in video.

Pole rigging 72dpi

(Left) The pole sections snugged together. (Right) The sections slightly separated.

There are probably more elegant ways of accomplishing this. If you have one, please let me know -- or post an article about it!

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