Anyone else built or fished one of these?

I picked up a blank of theirs at the DC fly show yesterday, and was very impressed with their finished rods. I got the 7'0" 1 weight for $30, which is a damn good deal for any blank, especially one of 50 mil modulus with a very nice finish. I don't have a scale here so I can't say what it weighs, but I would guess about .8-.9oz. Not particularly light but still a nicely done blank.

CC rating was 2.4 at 65' AA, so it's actually more of a 2 weight. Still, a nice little blank. I will be interested to see how it fishes.

Scott,

I think you'll find it to be a good blank for the price you paid.

One of the first rods I built was an Elkhorn 4 piece 6wt travel rod. Compared to a number of other rods in a similar price range, the blank was great deal and has lasted me quite a long time (10 years+). In fact I still use it as a Chironimid Rod. I found the 6wt Elkhorn really shined when fishing light leaders over hard hitting trout.

I have rebuilt mine three times and repaired it once for a graphite bruise. Originally the blank came as a complete package which appealed to me when I was starting out. The components provided with the rod, however, were less than ideal and I quickly wore out the tip top and grooved several of the snake guides. I would recommend using good guides with the rod as the only reason I rebuilt mine was for the above reason.

If the blank you purchased is anything like mine, expect it to be kicking around for a while.

Cheers
Robin

Thanks for the input. I wrapped the tip section tonight and did some test casting and really like what I saw.

Actually, I liked it so much that I'm considering keeping it and moving my other 2/3 weight out the door. Depending on what price that rod fetches on @#$%&, this Elkhorn rod might become my #1 small stream stick.

If anyone else is interested, I know that they will be attending several more shows this spring, including the Somerset, NJ one which is coming up pretty soon. The guys at their booth were very friendly, and it probably seemed even more so because all their blanks were 50% off...

Just a followup on this thread...

The rod CC'd at 2.01/67, and weighs 1.4oz with 6" superfine grip, cork reelseat & slide bands, and SF TiCh snakes with a #8 alconite stripper.

Fished it this weekend for the first time and found that an Airflo Delta 2/3 was much too heavy for it. Unfortunately Saturday had me fishing to a bunch of rising trout which would stop feeding when I got within 40' of them. Seemed like 35' was about the max for a decent presentation with the 2/3 line. Today, I picked up a Sage Quiet Taper WF1F and it fishes much better than with the 2/3. However, it does take about 25' of line to load up. A WF2F would probably be best. Ah well.

The rod acts more or less like I expected, a little slow to recover but very delicate presentations with a #22 stonefly. It looks like it'll do exactly what I wanted it to do...drop little flies on the nose of little Maryland and Virginia trout. Caught three today with it, the biggest about 12", which of course felt like it weighed about ten pounds.