Shipping your rods - WARNING!!!!!!!!

[bill5074]

I have had some bad luck lately with shipping rods via the Post Office. I shipped a rod to California in June and the rod tube showed up crushed and the rod broken. Luckily it was an inexpensive rod so I did not lose much and I was refunded by the post office. A week ago I shipped 2 St. Croix Avid X series rods to Missouri and the same thing happened. These were also in a heavy duty rod tube that was completely crushed and the rods destroyed. Both tubes had highly visible Fragile and Do Not Convey labels on them. I was out of town so my wife printed the shipping labels but unfortunately did not buy insurance so I ended up eating 400.00 worth of rods. Just a word of warning when you ship by any carrier to buy the insurance, it is worth every penny.

[PECo]

Yeap, the USPS sucks at shipping fishing rods. It delivered a six foot shipping tube that used to hold seven foot rods:

 

[sully420]

I used to work at UPS out of high school then I'll tell you they are not easy on any packages I'm surprised anybody gets anything intact

[earthworm77]

I buy and sell a ton of rods, I've had rods in cardboard tubes arrive broken, I've never had an issue with PVC. If I sell a rod, it get shipping in PVC and packaged correctly. Sure they can break pvc but I think it happens a lot less frequently.

[Sam]

So far I have been fortunate to have sent and received rods in tubes with no damage.

 

I use Fed-X and it seems they do a better job in protecting tube packages than the USPS.

 

May I suggest you start using Fed-X and notice if there is a drop in damaged packaging?

[.ghoti.]

Another warning. Make sure an invoice is included. Without an invoice, they get to decide what to pay, no matter what the rod was insured for. And you aint gonna win that argument. Put an invoice in the tube.

[geo g]

Use a different carrier, the USPO  is the worst!  Its all attitude!

[pondbassin101]

I recently had a rod shipped to me by UPS in a 8 foot cardboard tube. Arrived fully intact

[Angry John]

All shippers suck and all you can do is use heavy skedule pvc and pvc caps.  Tape them on using re-enforced tape.  I have never seen or had any issues this way.  I also use bubble wrap to prevent rod slap

[earthworm77]

17 hours ago, pondbassin101 said:

I recently had a rod shipped to me by UPS in a 8 foot cardboard tube. Arrived fully intact

I think the issue is with the longevity of the cardboard tubes. I don't expect a brand new tube to break but once if I re use it and the guy(hypothetically, I use PVC) I sell a rod to re uses it........and down the road, maybe as some point it degrades? Get's knocked around one too many times.....dented....etc.....

13 hours ago, Angry John said:

All shippers suck and all you can do is use heavy skedule pvc and pvc caps.  Tape them on using re-enforced tape.  I have never seen or had any issues this way.  I also use bubble wrap to prevent rod slap

I also tape the rod handle to the side of the tube so if a cap comes off, the rod stays in the tube and can't move around.

[Jacob Phelps]

My dad had this same problem. UPS broke two rods before the rod company decided to overnight the third one in a PVC tube. Arrived the day before our summer vacation. Idk if I can trust having rods shipped to me after that.

[Tony Albanese]

All the shipping services suck.

 

I went to the post office to ship a rod this morning in a PVC Tube. I have received several rods via Priority Mail in the last year or so. This was my first time shipping one. I walk up the counter with my address label and everything on the tube. They enter the dimensions of the tube (92" x 8" Girth (around the tube). They tell me its too large to ship via Priority Mail and their computer won't let them do it. I go on the website and show them as long as the length and girth  add up to 108" or less, it qualifies for Priority Mail. Since my total was under 108", it qualifies but they wouldn't let me ship it Priority Mail. What a joke. So I just shipped it with their ground service and it was $41.. yeah... $41! Won't happen again.

 

I have received Priority Mail rods before and the label ranges from $18-$30.. I have received them from CA and FL amongst other places, but I just don't get it.  From now on I'm just going to make my labels online and ship them that way. They have no clue what they're doing over there and they wonder why they lose billions each year. What a joke... Rant over. Carry on.

[Angry John]

Have fun trying to ship a gun to yourself even with the atf instructions in your hand.

[bigfruits]

i have had one close call (cardboard tube broken but rod intact) out of about 40 or so shipments going out and coming in using cardboard tubes. PVC is definitely the better container.

 

Fed-Ex has been the cheapest and safest in my experience. I think i paid $26 to ship two rods to AL from VA last week, i remember paying more than twice that amount shipping one rod via UPS to the same location.

[Angry John]

The last two rods I got last month were delivered next door by fedex

[new2BC4bass]

10 hours ago, bigfruits said:

i have had one close call (cardboard tube broken but rod intact) out of about 40 or so shipments going out and coming in using cardboard tubes. PVC is definitely the better container.

 

Fed-Ex has been the cheapest and safest in my experience. I think i paid $26 to ship two rods to AL from VA last week, i remember paying more than twice that amount shipping one rod via UPS to the same location.

 

Similar number of rods, but 3 arrived broken.  Two because of poor packing by the shipper.  One tube was in perfect shape, but the seller only had a bit of newspaper on one end.  Tip broke off from sliding back and forth in the tube.  The third one looked like the shipper laid the tube between 2 sawhorses and then stepped on the tube.    That one was from Wal-Mart and they replaced it.  The other two were from private sellers and still sit in my basement.  Money lost.

[bh91]

Just received a broken tip rod .. But great thing the store I bought it from has more so they are exchanging it at no cost to me .. The bad thing is that I gotta wait longer. Was reading this thread before I ordered and had some worries about a possible broken rod

[wdp]

This doesn't seem so far fetched nowadays. 

 

https://youtu.be/2Q6_9A90cUk

 

[vaparrothead]

I've been shipping rods to N. Wisconsin every summer for almost 10 years; this is the first year I've had issues.  I had a plastic Plano (maybe PVC) rod shipping container that would hold 5-6 rods.  After years of shipping the top came off and two rod tips broke.  I've always shipped UPS and didn't have an issue until this year.  Not blaming them just one of those things.  They did the best repair job they could; lots of cardboard and shipping tape.  Just bought a new shipping container on Amazon for about $57, well worth the price.