PALMS model codes explained

PALMS does not publish a table of what its model codes mean — we checked the official site and found none. So we did not guess. Instead we took the obvious readings of the numbers in each code and tested them against the length PALMS itself publishes for every size we list. What survived that check is below.

Rod codes — read against PALMS’s own length figures

We compared every rod code we list with the length PALMS publishes for it. 419 of 458 sizes (91%) are explained by the readings below, to within 3 cm. The rest do not follow either pattern, and we leave them alone rather than invent a meaning.

The letter at the end

PALMS does not publish what L, ML, M, MH or H stand for. What it does publish is the rating for each rod, so here is the range those letters actually carry across PALMS’s own spec tables.

These are the ratings most often seen against each letter in this site’s data, not an official PALMS definition. The same letter means something different on a trout rod and on a jigging rod, so always check the rating printed on the model page.