Curious, are there any freshwater casting blanks available similar to Cabela's Innercast rods where the line travels inside the blank? (Probably looking for a 7' Med/Fast.) I have heard a lot of positive comments about these and would like to try building a few for some walleye/bass fishing friends. Thanks for any help!

I haven't heard of the blanks being available but I haven't anything good about the rods.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

I sold close to two dozen of the inner line rods made by Pinnacle and Daiwa a few years ago. Not one person that bought them had anything good to say about them. I used one of Daiwa's rod for a few trips to see how well they worked. They cast pretty good for the first dozen or so casts then when the blank filled with water from reeling in the line the casting distance dropped by half or more. Daiwa had a screw on butt cap that you had to take off and tap the butt of the rod on the deck of the boat to drain the water out of the rod.

Pinnacle's rod were so bad that several of them broke and were returned to me. I sent them back to the factory for replacements. I called their offices in South Carolina and asked one of their company reps about the breakage problems. The guy asked me if I still had some inner line rods on my rack and I said that I still had about five in stock. He then told me to take those remaining five rods I had and to go to my door, open it and then slam the door on the remaining rods and then to send them back to his attention and he would send me some GOOD rods to replace them with.

Like Mike said no company that I know of has any in their line but if they did I sure would stay away from them.

They are fine to fly kites if you wipe the line from condenstation when you reel them in!

Make a decent tomato stake also. Don't lose the seperate theader or you'll never get line back in the rod again.

Thanks for the reviews gentlemen - I appreciate it! Spoke with a fellow who's fishing friends raved (positively) about these, and thought I might find a small niche in the local rodbuilding arena. There's a lot of positive feedback on Cabela's site also for their "Innercast" rods (employees?). I was still skeptical and couldn't believe a blank built this way would carry many positive attributes over the long run, that's the main reason for this post. Sticking with the guided rods here on out! Thanks again, Mike

This seems like one of those things where, it would be worth it to have just 1 around to get people talking. Because it's different, it catches peoples eye and gets them looking and talking. Honestly, I'd buy one and build it as a showpiece if they were readily available.

-jb