OK Guy's a little help here,

I have a man who wants me to build him a 5 ft fly rod. He's said he would probably use a 4 or 5 wt line. He wants to use it for small trout streams with lot of overhangs. This will be my first fly rod, so any suggestions would be helpful. We are due to meet tomorrow morning, so any suggestions are appreciated. I'm assuming that he will want to stay as low cost as is practical.

Bill in WV

St Croix SCIV 4 wt. If he wants to use a 5 wt line it will handle it fine. And will be better in windy conditions
Check out the Dan Craft blanks also.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2006 12:00AM by bill boettcher.

Bill,

Batson RX7 Model IF504 - Shows less than $40.00 on their web site

Hank
On The Rocks Fishing
Wells, ME.

Hank,

I looked real hard at that blank. I need to find out tomorrow if he wants a particular color or not before I buy though. I've got my eye on a few blanks so far. Keep the suggestions coming.

Bill in WV

Tiger Eye has a nice color to it. Depending on the action he wants ?? You could check the numbers on the CCS data site and compare blanks ? Rainshadow's are a nice emerald green and are on sale at FishSticks4U

He wants a plain brown blank with all black hardware. Looks like I'll be going with Global Dorber and recoloring the blank. He wants nothin fancy, plain but nice. My kind of guy.. One last question: would it be better to use single foot or snake guides?

As usual, ask and ye shall recieve!! Thanks guys!

Bill in WV

Tiger Eye blanks are brown. I'd go single foot.

I built a small stream rod on a 6' Lamiglas. I'd suggest that you use single foot wire guides (not ceramic inserts). You save a few dollars (over the ceramics), you gain a little performance (over the wider stanced snake guides), and you don't lose too much in performance compared to ceramics (since it's a small stream rod anyway). To me the final strong point was that the single foot wire guides make the rod LOOK lighter and more delicate which is in keeping with the SHORTER rod and the more DELICATE presentations required on small difficult streams.
Good luck

Bill,
Built a 5 wt on a net Craft ultra light spinning rod blank. Very fast, very light and handy for small streams. They have them in a plum color which is almost brown.

Try this site for extra short fly blanks. They have 4.5 & 5 footers for very reasonable prices.

[www.dorber.com]

Tim

Tim,

That's where I ordered the blank from. I ordered a 5' 6" to leave a little room for the reel seat and handle. I asked if they could provide a brown blank. I'm sure I won't hear anything till tomorrow though. No big deal if they can't, I'll just try tinting Permagloss to color it. He wants no fancy wraps, so this one is gonna be pretty easy. I'm still gonna dress up the guide wraps a little with thin trim bands though. I need a little help with placing the stripper guides, once they are placed I'll do static placement for the single foots wires. Does this sound good?

Bill in WV

Give 'er a try! I've wanted to try one of these out myself...just haven't gotten to it yet. I think it will make a nice raffle item for my TU group. I like building "exotic" rods for raffles...something people would nor probably buy on their own but wouldn't mind plunking down a couple of bucks for a chance on...know what I mean?

Tight Lines,

Tim

Thaks guys for answering all my questions.

Bill in WV