with all the talk of advancing our craft a thought came to mind. we need exposure for the craft to reach fisherman everywhere as well as with the general public. with so many rodbuilders i'm sure someone knows some celebrities in the fishing world or even public. think about someone on the espn fishing shows doing a segment on custom rodbuilding. this is just a thought and i have no idea how to make it work, but i thought if we could make so many fisherman aware what we do that many would take notice.
a good friend told me something a long time ago when i introduced him to rodbuilding. he had no idea how fishing rods were made. they could have been made by elves as far as he knew. he was a lifelong fisherman and a good one. we educate people all the time, but i bet every one of us had heard "you make fishing rods? i never met anyone that does that"
just a thought

Not that I'm a cynic, but, among the folks that pay the bills for the various fishing shows, there are quite a few rod manufacturers who would just as soon have those such as your friend remain ignorant of the art of rod building. They would much rather sell them a rod. I doubt that Pure Fishing is interested in creating more competition for itself. When they say, "It's not about the money", it's about the money. And no matter what they say they're talking about, they're talking about money".
Tight lines,
Hunter

From ghoulies and ghosties,
and long leggedy beasties,
and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord deliver us!

Hey John
I had the same thought and i think it needs to be done so we can get some more exsposure on our craft to the public !! As they say great minds think alike

Buy the way it is no secret they can find books all over to learn how to do it. We dont need to tell them everything that is known we just need more people to hear of a custom rod and not think the rods at wally world are the top of the line.

Big Dog Custom Rods

I think Joe @ Black Dog Tackle (Sponsor to the left) is doing this.

Regards

Scott

There was a segement on the Outdoor Channel (now Versus, I think) on the new Sweetgrass Rod Company in Montana. It's 5 guys that used to run the bamboo rod division for Winston, now out on their own.

It's the closest thing to a custom rod segment that I've seen. I stumbled across it on Sunday morning when nothing else was on.

ESPN is all about the money and ratings. You'll notice that there are no fly fishing shows on ESPN any more, with a couple of minor exceptions (some saltwater shows occasionally). It's mostly all driven to Bass tournaments and offshore with big sponsors.

I think a better shot might be something on Public Broadcasting.

Terry

I have a friend who's a prefessional bass fisherman, Shaw Grigsby from Florida. Back when I owned a tackle store I hired him to do a seminar on bass fishing. We became pretty good friends afterwards and started fishing together whenever he would come down to visit relatives in Baton Rouge.

On one of those visits he asked me if I'd like to be a guest on his fishing show One More Cast with Shaw Grigsby. He came down with his cameraman and helper and the night before he told me that I'd have to use Quantum reels and rods instead of the Shimano reels and my own rods . I also was using a topwater bait called a Rico and when the camera was on I had to switch to a Chug Bug which was made by another one of his sponsors at that time. I wound up using one of my spiral wrapped rods anyway with Lew's Speed Spools because at the time they were owned by Quantum.

There are some pro's fishing with custom rods but they are few and in between. With major tackle companies paying their salaries and furnishing them their equipment they won't take the chance of using anything but their sponsors products. It would be nice if we could afford to build and give 20 or so rods to a professional fisherman to fish with but none of us could compete with the major rod companies and the sponsorship programs they offer.

Once I prefished a tournament with him on Lake Seminole and after the second day of practice he had four broken rods and three reels that quit working. The broken rods were from a previous tournament. After practice that afternoon he just brought everything to the

I have a friend who's a prefessional bass fisherman, Shaw Grigsby from Florida. Back when I owned a tackle store I hired him to do a seminar on bass fishing. We became pretty good friends afterwards and started fishing together whenever he would come down to visit relatives in Baton Rouge.

On one of those visits he asked me if I'd like to be a guest on his fishing show One More Cast with Shaw Grigsby. He came down with his cameraman and helper and the night before he told me that I'd have to use Quantum reels and rods instead of the Shimano reels and my own rods . I also was using a topwater bait called a Rico and when the camera was on I had to switch to a Chug Bug which was made by another one of his sponsors at that time. I wound up using one of my spiral wrapped rods anyway with Lew's Speed Spools because at the time they were owned by Quantum.

There are some pro's fishing with custom rods but they are few and in between. With major tackle companies paying their salaries and furnishing them their equipment they won't take the chance of using anything but their sponsors products. It would be nice if we could afford to build and give 20 or so rods to a professional fisherman to fish with but none of us could compete with the major rod companies and the sponsorship programs they offer.

Once I prefished a tournament with him on Lake Seminole and after the second day of practice he had four broken rods and three reels that quit working. The broken rods were from a previous tournament. After practice that afternoon he just brought everything to the Quantum service truck and they replaced everything with new products. I doubt anyone of us could afford to just give away and replace broken rods on a continous basis.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2007 10:27AM by Lance Dupre.

Sorry about the double post. If someone could delete the top one it would be appreciated,

I agree - it's a tough go when you look at the sponsorships these guys have. I am lucky I have a buddy/co-worker who fishes the PWT - he won the event in Winneconne last year, and did quite well at the other tourneys on the trail - he's getting his name out there and picking up steam. I'm going to be building him 4 walleye rigging rods that he will use - now, I'm sure if he gets on the podium again he won't be talking about Richstick Custom Rods, but more about his Dave's Kaboom lures and Yar-Craft boats, but hey, a little exposure doesn't hurt :-) As soon as he picks up a rod sponsor (if he does), I'm sure my rods, while still used, will never be seen in a photo :-) Fishing is a business at that level. Nothing more, nothing less. I just think it's cool that I will have rods being fished on the PWT!

I think you all have good points. As Lance says, the Pro's are not where we could get any attention. They have too much at stake. If you ever see someone on TV showing off what they made, they have probably paid for the spot themselves.
I had a thought that the best way to do it would be on Public TV. If we could get someone to do a 1st class job of filming a teaching session say with kids. You could do the whole show on how to build a rod and why you do this and that.
Many of the public TV stations trade films they make or other groups do. It just occurred to me that most Universities have TV training classes for their multi-media degree folks. If you could get them interested somewhere, you might get a quality program put together which public TV would air.
My last thought (and then I will shut up and go to bed) involves buying time on public access TV. It really is not all that expensive and if you had a couple of pretty good training tapes, you could run them to try to stir up some interest. Is this something RBI could look into? It may not be in the right arena for them.
Just some thoughts.
Dave