I sell 50 to 75 rods per year. Mostly to fellow charter boat captains. I use the money to buy gas for my boat.

Purely a hobby builder for the last 25+ years. I make a few rods for myself , donate one or two to our trout unlimited chapter each year and build for a few select friends. I teach rod building to the natural resourses class at our high school. If I wanted to save money I would have been way better off buying the finished product from St. Croix or Loomis.

I started building because a buddy of mine took forever to finish rods for me. I sell about a dozen a year ,I buy my components retail and most people can't believe how much I invest in parts. I just tell people I won't build a nice rod using cheap parts. Could sell a lot more rods if I would lower my standards . The people I sell to like quality and don't blink at cost. I love the pride I take in making a nice rod. ED...

I have developed to the point where I am asked to make rods as gifts for retiring staff members and only charge what it takes for materials, having started making them first for myself and then for extended amily.... as an excuse to build more! I can't quite tell what it is I do differently from my first few rods, but thread cooperates and epoxy no longer has a high fear factor associated with it. Experience and developing an eye for what to see makes the difference I suppose. Each new rod I attempt to one up the previous rod for quality. Strapping on the hardware is a bore. Narrow bands, weaving, etc, that's where the fun is! Work demands limit time which is a frustration. Coming home tired and attempting painstaking detail is NOT relaxing. Having a fresh mind on a Sunday afternoon makes it fun. Marbeling and closed weaves are what I want to play with next. One of the unexpected benefits is this web site. Unlike similar 'interest' forums for gun nuts and cigar smokers (my other vices), the folks communicating here have concrete skills to share- not just opinions, and a nicer bunch of people I don't know that I'd like to know better can't be found. The rod building convention sounds like a blast, but is an awful long way from Alaska!

I fish, therefore I am.

I've been building custom rods, and repairing and rebuilding rods, for about forty years now. Not quite as long as some here, so I've still got a lot to learn.

I started, like many here, by building stuff for myself because I couldn't find exaclty what I wanted in the stores, or if I could, I couldn't afford it. Eventually, I was asked by other folks to do some pieces for them, and the extra money helped a bit. I did a few flyrods for myself, from 4ft panfish sticks for small ponds to 7-8ft 4-6wt sticks for trout; I rebuilt/refinished my very first bamboo, a Battenkill that my wife bought me used for Xmas one year. When we moved to Michigan and I got in with a popular tackle shop one of the things we did was produce salmon, steelhead, and walleye rods for both the shop and customers, and that's how I got into graphite flyrods and noodle rods and light-tackle rods for big fish too. Along the way I bought a Clemens manual wrapping jig, with the sliding extensions. and the little mount-it-yourself drying motor with the cuff-style clamp and the felt-lined support. Before that, it was encyclopedias and hand-fashioned supports for a starter kit. I built rods on some of the first Cortland blanks and some of the original Lamiglass, Fenwick, and Loomis Composite blanks too.

I'm not very artistic but somehow the thread-art part of this became my favourite thing to do. I went on to weaving and still do it without any special tools, which is certainly not the modern or best way but is very satisfying for me. I can lose myself for hours doing that. I get the greatest kick when a customer (or my wife or daughter) likes one of my pieces. My buddy has learned more in a couple years of messing around on his own rods, with my help, than I learned in all the time before, but he also "loses" himself for a few hours in the evening doing this. Like most of us, his intro came when he needed a guide replaced and I showed him how to do it.

Currently my buddy and I have put together a little business that makes enough profit to make us happy and covers the cost of the work with enough left over for our personal sticks. It's called Calico Creek Rods. Despite all the warnings not to do it, we're messing with the pro-bass folks in our area. We're doing about two rods a week - we both have "real" jobs and in fact my job takes me out of town five days a week. We have a "real" business structure with all the necessary paperwork. There are a number of one-or-two rod per-year builders in our area, but none who are willing to take on the kind of projects we do. We've also found that there's a lot of "if you don't do it [this way or that way] you don't know what you're doing" attitude among most of these folks but that's why there's a market for what we do. Our rebuild and repair work sells our custom projects, and so does the exposure we get while actually fishing with our own sticks. Our experiments end up being demos and are our best sales tools. We've already got some orders for Xmas. We keep our prices competitive but we try to provide that "personal" service that differentiates us from the local "tip-repair" tackle stores.

I'd love to have a shop but both of us need to work "real" jobs to cover our "real world" needs. When the economics of the business come round to being able to replace the jobs, or compliment retirement, sure enough, that's probably what I'll do.

After all this time I still get excited when I start on a new project and I still get a grin when I give a finished rod to a customer and they're surprised at how it turned out.

I value the posts to this BBS as much as I value each copy of the magazine. I've learned a tremendous amount just by reading here, and I apologize for my own overly detailed (and sometimes overly long) posts. You folks are the best!

Uncle Russ

For me, it is a labor of love. I love to create and be different. I try to look at building through a long wide lens, thinking outside the box. Sometimes I go to too far and I have to reel myself back in to reality.

Pushing the envelope is fun, but it can be frustrating. I love to do a rod or feather design that is unique. When someone looks at my work for a few seconds.......then they pause for a few seconds..............then they look at the rod again and they still haven't said anything, that's when I know I have just blown their socks off. That is the thrill for me and as far as I am concerned, more important than getting paid for the rod. That is priceless.........

I recently gave a rod to a friend and he was speechless for 2 minutes......every time he tried to speak.....he mummbled and looked back down at the rod. That was priceless in my book. the comments I got on my work on this site gives me a charge. I love to hear what other builders say, as well as, just viewers.

Oh yea, I almost forgot, I have a real job, rod building is my quiet time, my peace, my time.....................................................

Make 10-15 a year, most for customers, but lately made a bunch for me.......love it!

This site is the best thing that ever happened to rod building and all of us owe Tom for his tireless work to the hobby and craft we all love. There are some many talented builders on this board.

Terry

Hey Mike,
I am a retired Nurse. I have been making rods all my life but not to this quality or degree. I am mostly in a wheel chair and I started a little internet business building rods esp CHEAP Halibut Rods mostly for charter boats and reel repair. Boy have I spruced up those solid fiberglass blanks in the last year mostly from this site. I love the craft and I get side tracked experimenting and trying new things instead of turning out rods. I build mostly low end rods, NOT LOW QUALITY. I will build the occasional 500 dollar rod but most of my rods are for retired people with limited incomes and charter Capt's. up and down the coast. I try to make a 100 dollars a rod. So far this year I am avg. about 24 rods a month. I still have time to do my DAV rods for the local VA services I go to. As far as rod building this gives me the most joy. My fantasy in rod building is to spend a week with Doc Ski, a week with TK, a week with Ken Preston, and a week with Rand Putter. There are many others I would like to spend time with but that is a good five for me to start out with. Oh yeah a month with Billy V. This site and the people on this site have added a new stage in my life. And for that I am grateful and I thank you from the bottom of my heart until you are better paid. Yall have a nice day.....

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

Mike,
I do it for the fun of it. I probably sell half a dozen rods per year and really don't make much off of them. I never practice any wraps or anything.....like Nike, I just do it and hope it comes out all right. LOL But I do learn something from every rod I build and that's what makes it fun.....oh yea and having someone tell me how much they love the rod I built for them is nice too.

Thanks,
Steve

Hi Mike,

I am purely a hobbist at this stage. I am considering stepping up to a part time business after I have some more experience and feel OK with charging for my work. Bottom line? I just flat out love it and anything to do with fishing. My wife got me a lesson with a rod builder here in town for my birthday last fall, and I have been going ever since. I can't thank everyone here enough for sharing there wisdom and experience and love of the craft with newbies like me. It certainly has improved the learning curve over trial and error. Like others here, I hope to get to the point of making enough to at least break even, and maybe even cover the cost of one of those fishing trips of a lifetime with my son. Right now I'm just enjoying the ride!

"A bad day of fishing is ALWAYS better than a good day at work."

Blessings,
Dave

I am hobby builder, but I do sell a few. Do it mostly cuz I like to and really don't charge near what they are worth.

I'm a fairly new hobbyist; I started early last fall and have built six rods, and am working on my seventh. I got into this because I needed a rod for a particular use (an extra-heavy surf bait heaver), and I couldn't find a commerically-built rod that would do what I wanted to do. So I took a deep breath, bought Tom's book, and gave it a shot. And when I was done, after many missteps and mistakes, I was so proud that I became hooked on the hobby. This was despite the fact that the rod, while a fine performer, would certainly finish last in any beauty contest I entered it in.

Strugging through that first rod was a revelation to me. I began to understand how rods were put together, and that gave me new insights to the factory-built stuff I saw in tackle shops. Though I only intended to build that one rod, I began to realize that I could, because of how I fish (Jersey surf), get products much more suited to my uses by building my own. And the best part for me was realizing that it wouldn't be any more expensive to do so.

Although one never knows exactly what the future holds, I don't think that I will ever make it a business, and I even find it unlikely that I will ever sell a rod. For one thing, getting paid for doing something you love can frequently be a recipe for falling out of love. Being excited to go down the basement and do rod wraps because you can't wait to go fishing with your new tool is one thing; doing wraps because you have to meet a customer's deadline is another. Another issue is that the dollar return on time, for me at least, is about the equivalent of what a migrant farmworker would make. And another reason is that I have almost no interest in prettying up my rods: I use basic black thread on almost everything, and the diamond wraps and decorative stuff, while certainly pretty, do nothing to help you catch fish. And you need some of that stuff if you're going to charge enough to eke out a profit.

So I'll probably stay a hobbyist, building the occasional rod for myself, or for a friend. But you never know. But I do know that rodbuilding is addictive, and I don't think I'll ever be able to give it up.

Hey, Mike. I started to unwind thread, in the mid 70's, because Fenwick graphite flyrods were way beyond my means at the time. The fellow I visited on fateful friday showed me a rod he'd just finished....much nicer than factory, and about half the price.
I was (pun intended ) hooked.
I bought a little book by Don McLean, and started in.
The first tension device was a pitcher of water and the phone book, and a teacup to hold the loose spool of thread behind the book.
The steadies were vee notches cut into shoeboxes.
Eight hours later, I had wrapped 8 guides. Yup, an hour each...
I practiced on old Berkley stuff I had lying around, and made a few flyrods for friends for free, just the stuff, to get the practice in, for my rod, when I thought I'd got enough skill.
I did free repairs for friends as well, to gain the experiance.
The golden years were the late 80's to the late 90's in this trading area....then the local ecomony took a header. No-one wanted high end stuff, when a factory rod was much less, because of all the usual factors: offshore slave labour, cutthroat marketting, etc.
Pretty hard to sell a blue collar a 300.00 casting rod, when he can buy one off the rack for 129.99..... These days, I do the odd full stick, but mostly repairs for visiting anglers, and locals. It's pretty beaucoup coin for what it is.
Enter the world wide web....where a fellow can learn as much in a week as it used to take in a year !!!!

I'm an addicted hobbyist, that sells about a dozen rods a year. I like building rods for special purposes and which solve a "problem" that factory rods built for the average angler doesn't address. Throw in attempting to make them as unique looking as they are functional and I never make any profit per rod, but doesn't bother me. The little extra helps pay for tools and gadgets and doesn't have to flow through the family CFO and budget manager.

I build one or two rods per month. I build mostly for myself family and friends. This is a hobby for now....like Mick I think if I had to do it I wouldn't enjoy it so much.

This seems to me like a life journey where you learn new things all the time and acquire new skills and at the end of the day you have something in your hand to marvel at....think I'd like to get into bamboo at some point...as soon as I figure out how to hide the intial tool costs from my wife.

Hobbiest. I have built 5 flyrods for family, just completed a casting and spinning rod for a charitable organization and have a request to do another for donation. I have a production rod I want to rewrap as a spiral and a bamboo that I have to get around to refinishing. I want to put a new seat on my first fishing rod that my grandfather gave to me a 30 or so years ago. So hobbiest by with a backlog!!



Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

I have only been doing this for about 10 months. So far I have stripped down and re-wrapped, painted blanks, cut down to split grip, re-wrap spiral, etc...29 rods including several of my own and have build a total of 18 rods, 14 of which were for customers. I am a machinist by trade but if I could get a steady 5 or 6 rods a week to build, I would do nothing but build rods and fish. At least that's the goal.

Steve Buchanan

Steve's Custom Rods

I built a very crude spinning rod almost 40 years ago. I caught a lot of fish with that rod & I still have it. It doesn't go fishing with me but I still have it. I didn't build any other rods until about a year ago. I had purchased a Fenwick 4 piece fiberglass fly rod at an @#$%& a number of years ago & it had been sitting around. I got a bug one day & ended up building a new rod on that blank. It looked great to me at the time & I found that I liked putting it together. I retired last year & after a fishing trip to Alaska with my brother-in-law, I had an excuse to build a heavy weight fly rod for his birthday. That led to a bass rod for my son & an UL spinning rod for my wife. Next came a spinning rod & a fly rod for my family reunion. Then a couple of spinning rods for friends. I delivered the last rod that I built last week & on my way home I found that I was searching for an excuse to get another rod started. I think that means I'm addicted to this. It's a hobby to me & I don't make any profit from it. I either give the rods away or at the most, pass along my actual costs. The enjoyment of producing a one of a kind quality product for someone who will get enjoyment from it is payment enough.

I wrapped my first rod without any instruction when I was in high school. It was an 11 foot fiberglass surf rod and I did not even know the threads needed a coat of finish. The guides never came loose. Ignorance is bliss!
Three years ago I stumbled upon this site and it sparked my long forgotten interest in building rods. Frankly all the excellent examples of rod work intimidated me. I coud not imagine ever gaining the skills needed to produce such magnificent fishing rods. Thanks to the maganimous spirit of the members of this Forum and the formidable skills and efforts of Tom Kirkman I have been actively practicing my skills and enjoying learning as much as I can.

I am still a hobbyist and even if I ever make it a business it will have to be a labor of love. Rod building has become a source of great friendships with some of the great people here. It's also helped me to expand my expectations for myself. The benefits of this craft are manifold. I have sold one rod thus far and have made several as gifts. As my skills improve I look to seek other opportunities for making enough money from the craft to support my building and fishing passions.

Frankly, I attribute rod building to be the most rewarding activity of my life.. all 62 years of it. And this is just the beginning for me.

Hope to see you all at the next great National Rod Building Exposition.

Dave Gilberg

A man's reach should always exceed his grasp!

I too am a hobbyist as my local dealer tells me. I started building rods because I could not afford to buy a good fly rod. It kept going from there, bought some books, some blanks, parts, etc. I tied flies before that and in general love working with my hands. I've built about (70) rods in total and sold about (25) of them, excluding repairs, mostly for friends family and business associates.
I have always fished freshwater, started mostly trout fishing and have now gotten into bass fishing big time. Just finshed building (7) rods this spring to "round out" my collection for the boat. As I tell the wife you have to have the right "tools" and in bass fishing thats at least 4 or 5 rods. My son is into the bass fishing too so I have to make some for him also. My biggest problem is I love building these differenr rods but I don't usually sell enough to break even. I hear about it !!
I'm at that stage where I'm asking myself if I could make a living doing this or make some money doing it on the side and have time to fish as much as I want to. However after reading a recent post about how many rods you'd have to build per week to "make it" I don't think I could be successful.
I too am a new comer to this site as of January 2006 - a great site, great information sharing and I'm going to order the Rod builder magazine.

Only build for me and partner (wife is also fishing partner) and do from 3-4 up to 10 bass rods a year. Wanted a better rod about 1999 and once I started, well you know how it is! It is really something to see how much more information is available now than even that short time ago and Tom's tireless efforts have made a lot of it possible. I could never make a living building as it often takes me several weeks planning and at least two weeks to assemble the stuff, test and final build. Something must be going right my "partner" has even suggested that she "needs" a new rod to fish the big cranks!!
My regular job as CFO of a regional Masonry Contractor keeps me off the lake and out of the rod room at times. We do fish the "company" bass tournaments (every other week) and much bragging rights come from doing well along with a small "pot" for expenses.
My new "rod room" in the basement is almost finished so I should be ably to get caught up on all those projects I put off during construction. I will try and post a picture or two when finished. Don't worry about the tredmill in the background, some in the household call it an "exercise room"!