Hey everyone. I'm making my very first rod now for my wife's anniversary gift and I have a second mudhole kit ordered for a birthday gift to a family member. Today my boss asked me if I could make a better rod for him on a very limited budget. He has a 5.5ft light ugly stick he uses mainly for crappie and wants the same length and power with more sensitivity and lighter weight. Now I messed up ordering a lot of things for my wife's rod that will work great on this. I have a american tackle reel seat and micro wave air guides. I bought a bunch random eva grip parts to learn shaping on I can use for the handle. But I am having a really hard time finding a blank with these traits and I have only around 40 dollars to spend. Any help in the right direction would be great. Thank you for your time.

For your boss's blank budget, I think it would be tough to beat the CRB IS561L, 5'6" light powered blank from MudHole. I've built a number of them over the years for my wife, kids, and friends to use for crappie, bluegill, and for tossing some UL lures. I suspect your boss will love it. It makes for a build that feels incredibly light in the hand, and has an appropriate power for the desired task.

I concur with Joe. I've built 3 or 4 of those IS rods. CRB doesn't get a lot of love from the cork sniffing crowd, but they're solid, lightweight and perform very well.

Thank you for the advice. I really wasn't sure about going with cbr but after your responses I looked into that blank and can't find a bad review that wasn't self caused. Showed it to the boss and he agreed to it in bright green. Thanks again for advice!

Raymond Mckean Jr Wrote:
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> Hey everyone. I'm making my very first rod now for
> my wife's anniversary gift and I have a second
> mudhole kit ordered for a birthday gift to a
> family member. Today my boss asked me if I could
> make a better rod for him on a very limited
> budget. He has a 5.5ft light ugly stick he uses
> mainly for crappie and wants the same length and
> power with more sensitivity and lighter weight.
> Now I messed up ordering a lot of things for my
> wife's rod that will work great on this. I have a
> american tackle reel seat and micro wave air
> guides. I bought a bunch random eva grip parts to
> learn shaping on I can use for the handle. But I
> am having a really hard time finding a blank with
> these traits and I have only around 40 dollars to
> spend. Any help in the right direction would be
> great. Thank you for your time.

Sorry, but it seems to me that you are in a delicate position and no one wants to say it, but i think maybe your boss wants basically something for nothing. I usually tell these people that I can make a better rod, but not necessarily a cheaper one.

I agree with Kerry, I wouldn't do it for free. Good components aren't cheap most of the time. The one thing you got going for you is that it easy to beat an Ugly Stick in quality and performance. The Mudhole MHX blanks are some good blanks, I would see what they have on sale.

The CRB blanks are great budget blanks for sure, but keep in mind the ratings don’t seem to reflect the actions well at all. For reference I’ve built on an IS661ML and a IS661L. I was expecting them to be good trout/panfish blanks with soft actions similar to most ML and L action rods. The ones I got were very stiff and didnt make for good live bait rods. I tried using them as such and they didn’t load easily with light weight so I threw off a lot sinkers and bait just trying to cast.

I will say they do make excellent bass rods. I’m using the 6’6” ML as a general purpose rod for camping and it’s great. Impressed with the sensitivity for the cost.

That said, if you’re trying to match a similar action to an Ugly Stick Light power rod, I think you’d be disappointed with the CRB. That’s not to say they aren’t good rods for other purposes. However I think you’d be happy if you can get one of the Mudhole OEM blanks when they go on sale. They’re fantastic blanks for the price.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2023 08:08PM by Evan Cobb.

I can see why it looks that way. The truth is he has a LOT of things going on and money is tight. He also goes to a lot of local fishing events as a volunteer and precipitant. So if I can give him a little extra he can get my name out in the area. I told him the cost of all the random parts I already have and he wasn't happy I was giving it to him. ????

The CRB blanks do seem to be more powerful than their ratings might suggest. I think the ‘IS’ in the CRB blanks nomenclature stands for inshore. Maybe this is why they tend to be more powerful than most freshwater blanks with the same power rating.
The Rainshadow RX6 blanks are also inexpensive but very nice.
Norm