Well, I promised I'd post pictures when I finished them... Here's my write up.
During my 2.5 month exile to the mainland in dreary Michigan in the dead of winter (sigh), I managed to be productive. I built a pair of rods specifically designed for my kayak fishing wants.
First up, the beauty of building your own is that you can build them EXACTLY the way you want them. You don't need a reason for 'personal preference', you just build it to suit. So I wanted a pair of 8 ft, 2 pc rods. With a mid-fast action, and juuuuust enough flex in the tip section. But stout enough to use 30 pound line in a meaningful way - especially to set the hook on an wahoo or blackfin tuna while trolling plugs. I'm sick of loosing hooksets to my beloved ugly stick. BTW, Ever try to find a rod w/ those specs? It ain't easy, I honestly don't think one exists in pre-built form. I finally found a blank, a Batson Rainshadow SW967F. Google the blank and you'll find it used for everything from surf fishing to landing sailfish from a power boat. Great all around saltwater rods. And it comes in a 2 piece model! I think I paid ~$46/blank (crazy good deal).
So that's where the sanity and moderation stopped. I suppose if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. So here we go. The butt has a gimble. The idea is for the gimble to engage the gimble pin on my RAM tubes so I can troll w/ my reels pointing up toward the sky and as far as possible away from my paddle stroke and the surface of the water. IT WORKS. The handles are eva foam, but I layered in some colored foam discs for decoration. Sounds simple, but it was really time consuming. The reel seat is an Alps Triangle aluminum seat. They're the cat's SNUFFLEUPAGUS of reel seats. Sure I could have used a fuji, but if it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing. The guides are Alps too. They are tested to be free of any sign of corrosion in a salt spray for 6 months. Perfect. I agonized a bit but ended up going w/ the double-foot guides. They're heavier, but WAAAAAY more rigid and durable. The rings are zirconium coated w/ something cool (I think). They're not silicon dioxide (those were ~$35 for
just the stripper guide!) But they're a cut or two above the general hard ceramic that most rods have. good enough. Oh, and the guide sizes are a bit bigger than what is 'recommended'. Just in case I ever run a swivel for a wind-on leader. And the alert rod builder may notice the stripper guide is 'backwards' compared to the other guides. That has its origins in the custom tuna stick scene & was explained to me on this board. Thanks guys. All guides got an underwrap (of course), size D Gudebrod thread & 2 coats of flex coat. If you're wondering about the missing guides on the blue rod tip section, I ran out of blue thread & had to reorder. My wife mailed the thread down to me and I'll finish that rod next week.
For decoration on the butt wrap, I ditched the manufacture-supplied sticker describing the blank and made a water-slide decal w/ customized text... "Built by B.N. for B.N. '10". On the other side of the blank from that decal, big shout out to Tight Lines Custom Rods for that one. I put a decal of a blackfin tuna (carib-shibi) on one rod and an ono on the other. On the back of the stripper guide (pun intended?) goes the previously-posted mermaid decal. It will be 'face up' when fishing w/ a spinning reel. The pictures I posted earlier each had a pretty bad wrinkle in the decal so I stripped them off and re-ordered a couple more and also a more user-friendly to install version from BillMar. (Un)fortunately the Bill Mar mermaid is identical in every respect, except she's wearing a bikini top.
So that's it. I wound up spending about $160 total for both rods. I was a little surprised how heavy the rods turned out. It's of no consequence, they're trolling sticks for the most part and I'll happily sacrifice durability for weight. And compared to the weight of my loaded Spheros 18000, rod weight is round-off error.
If these pics don't display, You can view the official slideshow in Photobucket...
http://s298.photobucket.com/albums/mm279/Living-The-Dream_08/Kayak%20Rods/?albumview=slideshow
