This question will not advance the learning process this board provides so well but I'm real curious. If I lump all the different kinds of custom fishing rods that can be built into three general categories; say like salt water rods, fly rods, and general fresh water rods, what would the %'s break out to be?

If I was to venture a guess, and a completely uninformed one at that, I would estimate:
Fly Rods -40%
Salt Water Rods - 40%
Bass/Walleye/etc -20%

Anyone know what the real % are?


Thanks

I can only speak for the rods I build, but it's 100% bass and maybe 50% of those are spinning, 40% are casting & 10% are flyrods. ;)

I would say it's more like 50% freshwater bass/walleye type and 40% saltwater and only 10% fly. But, the better margins for most builders come on the fly rods and high end saltwater boat, trolling and surf.

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I would think that saltwater rods would be much smaller than freshwater just because of the sheer number of anglers that don't have access to saltwater. I live in Michigan and I would guess that we probably have more shoreline than the whole east/west coast. We have the largest number of boats registered

Mike

I outwrap for four different rod companies. My best estimate would be 70% freshwater, 20% fly and 10% saltwater rods. That is just based on what rods they send me to wrap. Right now I'm wrapping about 125 to 150 rods a week.

Thomas F. Thornhill

Most of the Nation's population lives within a half day's drive (or less) of a saltwater coastlilne. Don't underestimate the market for custom saltwater rods.

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And, some of us build saltwater rods, and use them for freshwater fishing. Levi

Thanks everyone for straightening me out. Looks like I way over inflated the size of the fly rod market. I just assumed that there was a higher percentage of custom fly rods being built because of the frequent questions about blanks etc.

Thanks again.

Keith
I think that the answers are going to depend on the locality of the builder. For someone located in Colorado or one of the other "golden trout meccas" I think your fly rod numbers would be too low . In the mid to lower South and California where fishing for trophy largemouth bass is very popular it's likely that the emphasis would be on conventional bass rods. Here I build lots more saltwater rods because that's where my customer base is - I live on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay where there are lots of charter boats as well as private boats and bank/surf fishermen. The amazing recovery of the striped bass / rockfish in the bay pushes my saltwater rod numbers (trolling, jigging, bank fishing) way over what one would consider a "freshwater rod" - although a light/medium action conventional or spinning "bass rod" could just as easily be used for drifting/bottom fishing for croaker, flounder, spot or casting small jigs to breaking schools of bluefish when they show up. What I have seen is a growing interest in saltwater flyrodding for striped bass in the immediate area which was likley inspired by Joe Bruce's books and lectures on the topic at several shows, seminars and gatherings of Trout Unlimited and the Fly Fishing Show that's held at the University of Maryland each year.