The Journey into Rod Building begins...

In May 2016 I decided I'd learn how to build custom fishing rods - mostly fly rods, since that what I fish almost exclusively.  I found a great deal on a used rod wrapping device that came with two different speed motors for coating, then drying the finished rod.

Rod wrapping machine with 2 motors.

My first project was to convert an existing Fenwick 6 wt 8' 2 piece fly rod that I'd found into a spinning rod.  It was in pretty rough shape, being out in the elements for quite some time, but after some cleanup the blank looked pretty good still.

I grew up fishing with my grandfather and his favorite rod was a converted fly rod that I happened to break the tip on in a car door incident many years ago.  So it seemed fitting that I should own a very limber spinning rod.  I can remember many hundreds of hours smallmouth bass fishing with him with these limber sort of rods.  We used 4 pound test and a #8 mustad hook.  We'd hook a night crawler once through just the head and put a small split shot about a foot up from the hook.  We'd drift fish many ponds all over the state with these outfits, and having a 3 or 4 pound smallmouth pull you around the lake on these light rods was tons of fun. Gramp has since passed, but I still enjoy fishing this way from time to time.

So, I began by doing online searches about how to build fishing rods and stumbled across a very informative website www.rodbuildingforum.com.  The folks there walked me through the process.  I carefully stripped off the old fly guides and got the handle removed.  That was quite a laborious task, but I got it done without damaging the blank.  The next step was to install the new cork tennessee style handle and the fancy, modern airwave guides that supposedly make a huge difference with spin casting.  Then I had to Flexcoat epoxy the thread wraps holding the guides.  I think it turned out great.  Here are a couple of photos of the progress:

Decorative wraps made over the rough area of the blank where the original handle extended past where the new spinning handle ends.

The finished decorative wrap.  Not bad for a newbie. :)

The next project was a small stream fly rod.  I decided on a 6', 2 piece, 2 weight fiberglass blank for this project.  Here are a few photos of the progress.

A brook trout decal and custom gold handwriting seemed fitting.

With guides and ferrule all wrapped it's time to trip then epoxy.

Also added 2 gold fish marks for quick measuring of fish on the stream - one at 12" and the other at 15"

Again the project came out what I considered to be excellent.  Very pleased.  Since building this rod it has caught well over 100 trout. :)  The largest of which were brook trout a tad over 13" and pushing 1.5 pounds.  They felt like tarpon, and even the small 6 or 7 inch fish are fun on this little rod. :)

Feeling somewhat invincible and now being somewhat addicted to building quality fishing rods I ordered a handful of fly blanks to work on over the coming months.  More on rod building to follow. :)