I had a strange request from a customer. Down here we have a big lady King Fish Tourney and I bought some cheap seven foot 20-30# PINK blanks. The lady wants her rod so she can use a spinning or conventional reel. I appreciate the versitility but how or can I do this.....Thanks in advance........

Big John
Rio Hondo, Texas
Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting

Maybe ferrule the handle(like the old wooden boat rod handles) and then spiral wrap with spinning guides on the opposite axis of the first few guides?Or make a 2 piece rod with 2 butt sections??Too early to type let alone think.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

Hi Big John!

You could just wrap a good spinning rod and if she wants to turn the rod up
and put a casting reel on it, well, thats on her.

Or, off the top of my head I would think the best way to acomplish that would be to
wrap it like a standard spinning outfit but when you place the guides and stress
test bend the blank with the guides up instead of down. Of course this is going
to require either 1 or 2 more guides or guides with higher frames to keep the
line from contacting the blank to much and eliminate the flat spots and the larger
spinning guides near the butt won't inhibit casting when using the conventional reel
like smaller casting guides would interfere with a spinning reel and there would be
enough guides placed so stress would be proporly distributed when used with the
casting reel. Follow?

She is going to take some ribbing from other anglers though about using the wrong
type rod. (some people are just rude! LOL!)

Or, I have an aluminum reel seat that is designed to slide along the length of
the handle similar to the rings of a tennesee style handle. The seat locks in
place when you screw in the reel with pressure from the reel foot. This would
allow you to bumper wrap it as a casting rod and then just add a spinning type
butt guide on the 180 axis because any reel could be mounted on the top or
bottom just by turning the seat.

You would have to play around with the guide set-up on the second suggestion
and the rod would really look "funny". However, the lady who uses it can definately
say she has a "custom" rod designed specificly for her use when people comment
about it or why she is using a casting reel on a spinning rod or vise/versa.

Personally I would try to convince her to use 2 separate rods but if that is what she
wants, well, who are we to argue?

If you would like the reelseat I have I can send it to you. Does she need the rod ASAP!

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Yea, I also agree with Fred about the the removeable handle idea.
Does the same thing as a floating seat!
1 handle with 2 blanks both ferruled to fit the handle. (thats still like having 2 rods though)

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Dual purpose rod...build a traditional conventional (guides on top,no trigger) but put the stripper guide further up the blank than you normally would. Play around with test casting with both reels and find a happy medium.....other than that, try to talk her into two pink rods.

MIke

I'd just kinda' make a middle of the road rod, using high frame double-foot guides. If you started with something like a 16, that'd be high enough to make a decent spinning rod, but low enough to make a decent casting rod. If you made your transition to low frame fly guides pretty quickly, the torque (when used as casting) wouldn't be terrible. And, you wouldn't have to worry about the stress bending a single foot spinning guide (when used as casting).

Then, you could use just a standard spinning reel seat.

As long as she's OK with getting a custom rod that's going do to everything well, but nothing perfectly, I'd go for it.

If you are talking about the King Fish Tour kind of people, fish and rods you may need to check what class of blank you have. Is yours really a blank rated to handle the Kings. If so buy one AFTCO seat and butt section and build different extensions for spiraled guides for conventional reel and larger guides on bottom for spinning reel if the blanks are correct. If you want to look at some of the available options for Kingfish Rods take a look at the Melton On Line Catalog to look at some of their custom Kingfish Rods to get an idea of what you want. They even show a combination rod like you are describing. The King rods I am familiar with are heavy duty rods for trolling or plugging around platforms or rips on bluewater boats. A mag bass rod may be "firing a blank" in this case. There is a lot of difference between a blank rated for 20 - 30 lb line and one rated IFGA 30, 50 or 80 Class.

The first thing I'd do, is explain to her that what she's going to have, is a rod that isn't very good as a spinning rod and isn't very good as a casting rod. The compromise here is just not going to be very good. I'd try to sell her two, but if she won't got for that, I'd just explain that what she's asking for just isn't going to work very well for either one.

.................

Depending on what she wants to pay the single rod as Andrew said would be cheaper.
If she wants two rods that perform well charge her more for two butts one for spinning and one for casting
Then try to talk her into a nice three piece custom made sock to carry them in ?? $$$$$

I disagree. If you make a suggestion to the owner that their fishing rod will be inferior then they will think that no matter what you build for them. I say build it for them as per their specifications. Do explain to them that the rod will be an "unconvetional" build, outside the mainstream of thought on how a rod should be constructed and that there MAY be a little tradeoff in performance, then go for it...... build her what she wants and use your best skills to assemble the rod in a quality way.

There is someone I built a rod like this that uses his rod as both a spinning or a casting rod. He freely changes reels between spinning and conventional. The blank I picked for him has two very apparent spines at both the 0* and 180* axis. He has been using for some six seasons already with no complaints. If there is ANY decease in performance from this rod it would have to be when being used as a spinning rod since the line is being choked a little sooner than "typical", but he has not complained at all about shortened casting distance when used as either a spinner or casting rod, and he absolutely spanks the speckled trout with it.

Depending on reel I would use the smallest stripping guide I can get away with. I would not start with a overly large stripping guide, I used a HSVG25H high frame guide for the stripping on this 7' rod, and stepped down from there. You're going to have to decide where placement of this guide is best by doing a few test casts with guides taped in place. This guide is high enough that the line remains pretty much level between the reel and the stripping guide when used as a conventional rod. I placed the guides on the most pronounced, or dominant, spine to counteract any tendency for the rod wanting to roll over to the "guides down" position when in use as a conventional rod. Choke the line down to the smallest guide you're going to use quickly - 2 guides , then proceed with spacing out the remaining guides toward the tip as you would a conventional rod. Other than guide layout this is a very straight forward build...

Lou

Trouble is, the next guy who sees it and thinks it's awful won't know you built it to her specificactions. He'll just think that Big John's Rods doesn't build very good custom rods. Been there and done that. I won't build something that isn't going to excel for the customers and I don't think this will. Why does she want to use two different reel types on it????

Have the lady come over. Mock up one of those pink beauties for spinning and another for casting. Then mock one up as a combo. Let her try them all and see what she thinks. I have a feeling she'll buy two rods one each set up for each type reel.

Even the " nicest " rod built, some one will find some thing wrong. Ya can not please every one !

What Danny said is I think the best thing to do, if you can. Either case, make sure she understands what she is getting and what to expect from it . That guy that does not like it probable buys his at Wally World ?? LOL

Thanks guys for all your input. I have done everything in my power to to try and make her understand that she is going to have a rod that is not going to do what she wants either spinning or casting. I can get in more trouble as I'm sure you guys get into on occasions. Thanks all your input is greatly appreciated...........

Big John
Rio Hondo, Texas
Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting