It appears that the fishing rod was first used in the 17th century, when Thomas Baker wrote about the "fishing rod using a free-running, loose line".
The Chinese wrote about the split-cane type of rod as early as the third century BC. But it wasn't until 1862 that the method of splitting, fitting, and gluing together three sections of bamboo cane into rods became popular.
In the early 1920s, the first solid steel rod was introduced in the US. A tubular steel rod was marketed in 1933.
In 1944, the experimental hexagon-shaped fiberglass rod was introduced in the US. The qualities found in a cane rod were successfully duplicated by synthetic means. A revolutionary fishing was born. Because they are lighter than bamboo, fiberglass , graphite rods introduced in the 1970s are very popular today.
