No, never broke a rod that way. But, you need a good stout rod to start. Tarpon take a lot of wearing down, so you need a stout butt (the rod, not you although possible you too in a long fight)
If fly fishing, a 12-weight is the ticket, although I do have a favorite 10-11 Orvis that is stout enough for most tarpon. With a revolving spool reel pick a rod with a long extended handle and a stout mid-section.
There is a system to wearing a tarpon (or any big fish) down faster. If you go head to head with them, physical against physical, you will be in for a long session. Try to prevent a fish from going straight away against only rod pressure. You have an advantage in the length of the rod. As soon as your fish establishes direction, that could be species from, trout to salmon to tarpon, switch the rod tip as far in the OPPOSITE direction as it will go and apply pressure. All fish, any fish, will try to pull away from the direction the pressure is coming from. Think about it. If an unseen hand was trying to pull you away in the dark, you would pull as hard as you can in the OPPOSITE direction. If the direction of the pull shifted, you would pull as hard as you could against THAT direction.
So, you have shifted the rod tip say hard left, the fish has adjusted, and pulling hard opposite that. Keeping the line taut, swing the tip as far as possible to the right! That's the way he is pulling too, so you will now skid him in that direction aways. Whoops! Now he will react to that, and he will swing hard the OPPOSITE direction. Put good pressure on him a while, then switch your rod tip to the other diredtion, which will now skid him that way until he recovers. Keep doing this and it will flat wear the fish down in a hurry.
In Alaska we would play games with salmon like that and they would get so panicked reversing directions, we could get them to beach themselves. I have no proof, but I believe you will also wear the fish down psychologically. Every time he has control, you upset his control by switching. Also, it takes more of his energy to switch directions then to pull straight.
Try it with whatever you are catching and practice it. You will be shocked at how well it works. This is how you can land 10-pound trout on 2-pound test tippets. Good luck on the tarpon, just play safe.
Colorado Bob AKA Oldguysrule
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