Well, I did what was not supposed to be done – and it came back to bite me in the a@%. I built a spinning rod out of a Rainshadow IF806 fly blank. 8 ft. med-fast action, 6 weight. Paired it with a Okuma Alumina spinning reel with 6 lb line. Built it for my father-in-law for fishing for small walleye using small jigs. Well, it worked great for the small ‘eyes and several perch. Then, the northern came to play. Small northern grabbed the jig, pulled off drag, but the blank broke just above the reel seat. Nothing against the Batson guys, it is clearly stated that the warranty is void for this type of application. My first question is – why did this happen? Long whippy rod, light line, soft drag, no visible damage, and not that big of a fish.

Secondly, is it worth trying to repair the rod, or is this just likely to happen again? I could use something similar to the ATC matrix handle to repair.

Also, why do some companies void warranties for this application - probably because they end up doing exactly what mine did. Again, I do not blame Batson - I have had nothing but positive experiences from them in the past, and they are explicit in the warranty.

Thanks for any input.

Drew;
I can't tell you why except that I did the exact same thing and mine broke in the exact same location. I rebuilt mine; put a sleeve over it butted up to the reel seat and has been fine so far. I have been using it for over a year now.

I to was putting pressure on a little larger more aggressive fish when it happened. Pure and simple I over taxed the rods ability to perform as it was intended and like your father in-law paid for it.

Building a spinning rod from a blank sold as a fly rod did not necessarily cause your rod to break. I can assure you that the rod never knew what type reel you were using on it.

The only possible problem in such an application would come from the point of effort being moved further forward on a spinning rod versus where it would be on a fly rod, effectively putting the maximum applied load onto an area ahead of where it was not designed to be placed. Sort of like what happens on any rod when the fisherman reaches up ahead of the handle area in order to shorten the effective lever. The load then falls on an area that wasn't designed to take it and failure is a likely result.

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I believe that you must have a defective blank as you stated using 6lb line which I would expect to break long before the rod.

I've made quite a few spinning rods out of fly blanks, even fly blanks as light as 3wts. and I have not had one break yet. On a 6wt. fly blank, 6lb. tippet (about 2X or 3X in most brand tippet) should not be too heavy, assuming you don't high stick the blank, and of course even that wouldn't cause it to break where yours broke. Also, I think Tom's point about shifting the load is unlikely in this case, unless you had the spinning reel way up the blank, like 3 ft. from the butt or something crazy. If your reel was within 2 ft. of the butt, I don't see how it would affect the load bearing enough for 6lb. line to not fail before the blank, unless the blank was weak at that point for some reason, like a manufacturing defect or some damage to the blank that hadn't been noticed.

I broke a fly rod just in front of the cork once and I repaired it with a fiberglass oversleeve (ala Ralph O'Quinn methods - see library). It continues to fish great and is really as good as before the break. I'd say it's definitely worth repairing since it looks like a warranty claim is not a possibility.

I am not sure why your rod broke. I would call Karry or Bill Batson. Explain to them what happened, maybe the have a correct answer.
Good Wraps Bob