In another post below I was wanting info to build my grandson a red fishing rod. The Daiwa QR 750 reel I ordered for him came yesterday and it’s a sweet little gem. So I decided to go to Cabelas this morning and look at 5 1/2’, 6’ and 6 1/2’ light rods to get an idea of the proper length.

I just had to laugh. Here were these ultra light rods with the same weight reel I had bought, and the guides looked like they belonged on a 12’ surf rod. The reel looked like the same 38mm spool as my Daiwa but they had a huge 30mm butt guide hanging off it. If fact I think there were 5 guides in all and they were way too big for this short rod. When I tried to balance the rod with 2 fingers under the reel foot, the front end did a nose dive. This was the worst tip heavy rod I’ve ever held.

So I got home and was going to order the red CDB blank and reel seat but dug out my old chart that I used with the old table edge Concept method to determine proper guide size and placement. I knew I had a Gary Roach lightweight rod out in the garage and went and got it. Then I realized I had stripped the old guides off and rebuilt it base on the New Guide concept. This is a 2 piece 5’8” redo with garnet wraps and it looks like it just came off the assy line. And it was rebuilt with a 20mm butt guide.

I put the Daiwa reel on it and started laughing because with my two fingers under the reel foot, the rod balanced perfectly horizontal. So I’ll have the wife make him a red rod sock, and I’ll make a PVC tube with his name on it and he’ll be all set. I have to admit I actually dida pretty good job rebuilding that rod years ago, it was just funny how poorly they’re still made today.

Trust, but verify - Ronald Reagan

Tim Collins Wrote:
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> it was
> just funny how poorly they’re still made today.

Par for the course actually. Since profit is what drives this industry most of what we buy is all made cheaply in China with almost no quality control and no vision from that side of the pond as to our market desires or needs.

The bulk of fishing products bought in the USA are bought by people who really do not care about quality. They care more about price than anything else. This is why we have the situation we do inside of Walmarts and other retail stores selling the cheapest crap made- all of it or most of it made in China.

High end performance equipment is really a dying luxury and even in the custom rod industry you'd be amazed at how much of it is also made in China. Entire custom rod companies economic survival all because of cheap Chinese production. It is the nature of the beast today. Quality is secondary to profits and economic survival. Ask Falcon rods. Once upon a time all made in USA and then around 2016 they sent one line of rods to be made in China, then another, and today I think all of their rod lines are made in China with the exclusion of their top of the line Cara rods were still made in USA, but for how long?

The trend in the fishing tackle industry is today to make things cheaper and cheaper while keeping prices up artificially and 99% of the U.S. market is perfectly happy with cheap Chinese junk from Walmart.

We here are a dying breed. And even among us and our "sources" we are kept in the dark how much of it is made in China and "assembled" in USA is the new sales pitch for diversion of truth.

Par for the course my good man... made in USA is just about dead and gone but let's hope not for good.

I had a rough day at work the other day and started fantasizing about business models to execute to rod build full time. It was extremely limited when I started looking at blanks made in USA for a line. Of course a lot of that means the raw materials in the pre-preg are likely not from USA either. So I was further limited. I don't mind the Japanese made stuff as long as it is actually manufactured there and not a Japanese company sourcing from China. A lot of these kind of manufacturing situations are hidden from public view as well. I source a lot of components in my job and the amount of Chinese outsourcing is ever increasing. Our warranty numbers show it too.

It is not wise to equate price with quality. There are many moderately-priced blanks out there which match or even out-perform their higher-priced competition. The "Minnie Pearl" syndrome is alive and well.

Greed, selfishness, power and money (not necessarily in that order) rule the entire world. I give kudos and my business to companies in the USA.

True indeed. A bit OT, but I'll say that it is not limited to just factory rods. I've also seen my share of 'custom' built rods that is not as ideally as configured as they should be. There's the perception by many that as long as a rod is 'custom wrapped' that it is better than a factory rod. Not always. (And I'll say that some of the Japanese rods are amazing and hard to exceed because they have proprietary blanks that really are exceptional.)

There is always a great deal more parity between most products than high-end advertisers/retailers will admit. There aren't all that many prepreg carbon fiber manufacturers, and the difference between one blank fabricator's mandrels and those of the next are not all that spectacular. All rod blanks are definitely not the same, but you won't find many double-blind comparisons between blank "X" and blank "Y". You can read advertisements and indulge your imagination with claims of "smooth" or "powerful" or "responsive" or "straight tracking" or "soulful" [Really!] blanks but you will starve to death before you see the tensile strength or harmonics or any other verifiable physical facts about rod blanks besides length, weight and price.

Kudos to you Phil! Good comment. Way too much info is a bunch of marketing @#$%&. As some of you said...the bottom line or the top interest in, how much profit will be made.

...still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up...