Last evening I spoke at a sportsmans club dinner meeting. One question I was not able to answer was, can you find me a 6 1/2 ` med. action 4 - 14 # line rating rod? The guy said he had one 20 years ago and broke it and has never found another. Now , I have to tell you. He was one of the cooks and may have gotten into the cooking sherry.

Late winter I did a craft show and he was there and asked the same question. so , when I came home and looked quickly through a couple of catalogs and found nothing. Has there ever been such a beast or does he have poor memory?

The talk went really well since it was the first I had spoken in front of a group since my 44 year old son was in Cub Scouts. Then I had to speak in front of a bunch of 8 year old kids. I was nervous as heck then too. lol

Thanks for any thoughts,

Bill

Ohio Rod Builders

Canton, Ohio

Bill,

Glad the talk went well, congrats!

As far as the blank, that would be a pretty tall order. The Batson ISB/XSB 822.5 rated at 6-14lb. with a few inched trimmed off may be a place to start. I do recall reading on here some time ago about somebody working with some blanks, probably Japanese market, that had abnormally wide line and lure weights. If I can find the post, I'll give you the link.

Joe

I used to get requests along those lines. You might be surprised that the labeling is the issue, not the blank. Saddled with that particular request, I would have handed him a few 6.5', 6-12# blanks WITHOUT labels and asked him which was closest to the action ... stating that the line weight was correct, but the action needed discerning.

I am sure you also get calls for Medium Heavy Action rods ... because that IS what some factory print on the shaft. Take what you know to be truth and apply it to the situation and you will solve the equation 99.5% of the time.

Jim is right - the guy seems hung up on finding a rod with a label that contains the same subjective terms he remembers on his earlier rod. You can very likely match the rod, but will have to provide your own label to match his earlier one.

.................

I hate questions like that when speaking at club functions.
That's really all I can add.

One thing, there is no medium action, you have medium power, but then you can have vaious actions. I would guess he is thinking medium power, but not sure what the action he is looking for in the rod. I don't think you would find something with that wide range of line powers. I would think you would also need to look into what lure weight he is looking to use and just what the rod is going to be used for. The blanks listed above from Baston would be one of my places to start myself, but they do have a fast to extra fast action to them.

My answer to this would have been "Sure can - let's get together." because Jim hit the nail on the head. It's that simple most of the time. No reason to be intimidated.

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Look at the Phenix x9 composite.

Thanks guys, Good ideas and thoughts. I will just wait for him to contact me again.

Thanks for getting me prepared.

Bill

Ohio Rod Builders

Canton, Ohio