The 3-minute YouTube video below from longtime multi-species guide Johnnie Candle should be must-see TV for any beginning angler — and many experienced ones, too. Candle details the most-common reasons why anglers break fishing rods and provides tips on how to avoid these mistakes in the future.

During my 7 years working in retail, at a fishing store that specialized in custom rods and repairs, I inspected hundreds of broken rod blanks. And of course, 99 percent of the time the angler said something like, “I don’t know what happened, it just broke while I was casting.” Or, “It just broke while I was fighting a fish.”

Okay, reality check time: If a rod blank is defective, it’ll break within the first couple of times it’s put under a load — i.e. casting or fighting a fish. If a rod doesn’t break the first time you have it on the water, and you’ve caught a fish or two on it and then it breaks, well, the real cause was you.

Usually what happens is a rod blank was bruised by misuse or an accident (like hitting it on the gunnel of the boat), but it didn't break at that precise moment. But the bruise is now a weak spot, and the next time the rod is put under a load, it snaps.

Another common breakage reason is putting too much flex in the rod, which Candle explains well in his video. Using the rod to lift a fish into the boat can cause the blank to bend in too tight of an arc, causing it to snap. Bass anglers often experience this problem when “boat flipping” bass. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to take a few extra seconds to bend over the side of the boat and grab the fish by hand, or use a net.

I’ll end with a personal anecdote: I spent six summers as a multi-species fishing guide — five in northern Minnesota and southern Ontario, and one in southwest Alaska. I’ve been an avid year-round angler for almost 55 years. I own dozens and dozens of fishing rods for different applications, and — knock on graphite — I have yet to break one. However, my 22-year-old son, who fishes with his buddies a tremendous amount, has broken six of our family’s rods in the last dozen years. Draw your own conclusions!

Check out the video and learn how NOT to break another fishing rod.