Have you ever had a rod ring/guide suffer any damage via clipping a lure onto it?

A comment I saw on Facebook got me thinking about this, indeed if I think back to any photographs that I might have posted in the past such as below where the lure is clipped onto the bottom guide or rod ring on a lure rod, I guarantee you that a small percentage of anglers will then say something along the lines of you’re going to damage your rod guide if you carry your rod around like this and you should be using one of the hook-keeper things instead…………….

I am all about trying to learn and improve my fishing as I would hope you pick up on with this blog, but I’ve been walking around with lure rods for a number of years now where my lure is clipped into the bottom guide - and I have never, ever damaged that bottom guide by doing so. Hell, for a lot of years now I have used those Vac-Rac rod holders on my cars to transport my lure rod or rods from home to fishing or from location to location, and even through driving around like this with the rods in the open air and taking the odd bounce or whatever from the road - I have never, ever damaged that bottom guide by doing so.

It’s always been the easiest and most logical way to me to carry hard or soft lures around like this, and whilst I get what those few anglers are saying, I just haven’t had it happen to me, plus I can’t think of anybody I have fished with who clips their lures away like this ever complaining about a damaged liner on their rod guide. A friend of mine often clips the bottom treble of a hard lure or obviously the single hook on a soft plastic onto the balearm on his spinning reel for walking or driving around, and whilst this makes sense and it obviously works, I don’t personally like having hooks or a hook that near my hand or waders or clothing when I’m moving around. We all slip and stumble a bit out on the rocks or seaweed especially, and I can see myself putting a nice big hook straight through my waders, but again, I don’t recall this ever actually happening to my friend. I do though sometimes photograph lures clipped on in this way because you can secure the treble hook so the lure doesn’t move around, as per below.

I clip my hard or soft lure onto that bottom guide of whatever lure rod I am taking out fishing and walking around with as naturally as I know how the zip opens and closes on my HPA Chest Pack which sits at my side. I don’t even think about it, I just do it. I get completely that the liners inside the guides on our fishing rods can get damaged and chipped from say dropping or dinging the rod in some way, indeed along with the roller bearing on a spinning reel, those are the first two things I check if my braid starts suddenly snapping out of the blue. So I reckon I get most of it here and of course I am left wondering if those few anglers who tell me that I’m going to damage a rod guide by clipping my lures in like I have always done have ever actually had any issues doing this. I’m not saying it can’t happen by the way and by writing this blog post I bloody bet you that when I can go fishing again I clip my lure away and chip a rod guide, but I’m going to keep doing it because it’s logical and easy and it works. I also clip my lure clip away like below because it makes the most sense to me. Logical thinking for some distinctly illogical times?!