I have just cleaned my pole in readiness for the this years fishing. Whilst it is clean it isn't very smooth through the hands. Can a use some sort of polish on it so that it slips through the hands easier?
Most poles slip through the hands quite easily when they are dry, its when they are wet that the problems start. Just make sure that what you put on the pole doesn't make the problem worse when it gets wet by becoming sticky. Silicone repels a lot of the water but can become sticky in a continuous downpour.
Try sliding the pole back over an open hand and only gripping when you slide the back hand forward, hard to describe but you can imagine what I mean (I think).
It was suggested to me in 1998 for all rods and then later for lines. Never done my poles or rods any harm whatsoever. Use it with confidence or try a small portion first if you still don't believe me.
The beauty about it is, if you don't like it for your rods and poles, you can always clean your car's interior. For most anglers, that's the usually black-ish thing that's all around you when you sit in it. If it's anything like my mates it's got 6 or 7 years of dust and other crap all over it.
It might seem a bit of a paradox, but you don't want the pole too shiny. New poles always stick when you ship 'em, especially when wet, but when the surface takes a little wear, they get much easier. So don't polish too enthusiastically. Don't know why this is, but it must be for the sanye reason that sharks have rough, rather than smooth skin to aid their speed through the water.
I meant 5 years on my current pole, don't know what happened to the last it just disintigrated when I was polishing it one day )
I can't remeber exactly how long I've been using it but I used it to clean my rods before I even had a pole. I also heard about it being used as Jeff mentioned as an alternative to greased lightning for gaining a few more yards on a big cast, never tried it for that though.