Thanks to everyone for their replies. It sounds like these might be a little much for a typical panfish setup
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Calling the Immortal popping rod a noodle isn't very accurate. It is a nice rod but my preference for jigging rods may be slightly stiffer than average. If I give a good snap cast into the wind I don't like feeling the rod load/whip back and forth. I like it to recover quickly. All the rods I mentioned above work very well for various types of fishing but for casting jigs and plastics I like a cr
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I've built on the Immortal UL popping blank and that is more noodley in the top... maybe 1/4 of the blank than I prefer for jigging. I built on a 7'3" Light Elliot blank last year and thought it was perfect. Can get a lot of power behind those jigs on a good snap cast. I've also used a Bushido 7'2 rated for 4-8 lb I believe and it's very good but also just a touch on the light side for me
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Hello, I was considering trying a Liberty DS 690 or 700 for panfish. Primarily casting 1/16 and 3/32 oz jigs and plastics for bluegills and crappies. Anyone with experience with these blanks what do you think? Would it be a good pairing? Would they feel crisp or is the tip whippy? Too much midsection power (I don't mind some decent power on my panfish rods as long as the blank loads some with
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Thanks to all for such great replies. Pretty universal recommendiations for the Fujis. I ordered a set for the rod mentioned above as well as a ML Rainshadow Immortal that I have on my list to build also.
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Hi there, So far I've built several spinning rods, all using Minima M and F guides, using the 27x or KR concept. I've always considered trying Fuji K guides but kept going back to Minimas because I had them on hand and the price. I have to order guides anyway, and decided to spend the extra few dollars on Fuji guides for this build, but then I started wondering if they were actually better
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Matthew, to follow up on your 7 foot walleye rod and 39 inch nodle rod. Did you leave the noodle rod full length and just cut the 7 footer back till you got a good fit, or did you trim the butt end of the noodle at all so that you could leave more of the walleye rod? I could see cutting more of the long rod back could reduce a stiff spot or strange bend, but would be more tip heavy with more i
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Matthew, WOW! I have been considering doing just that exact thing. My only hangup with it is not knowing how long I should attempt to make the noodle rod. Don't want to cause an odd or sharp bend where the 2 rods meet. Could probably figure it out with some playing. It may look a little funny unless i color both blanks to be the same color but probably be passable. I dont think visual appeal
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The main use would be deeper vertical jigging but some casting can't be ruled out. The rod would be hand held. The crappies here run from small to maybe 14 inches max for the most part. Bites can range from hard agressive taps to gentle "up" bites where the line just goes slack. The up bite is where the light visual tip would come in handy as you get to see the rod unload.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Being able to see the bite will be a very important part of this build. Will the Rainshadow blank be soft enough in the tip to show that? How about the 5 to 7 weight fly rod option? I considered fly rods but wasn't sure what weight to go with and if there was a weight that would be soft enough to show the bite yet have a pretty good backbone. Ideally the rod wo
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I do agree with what many of you are saying. This rod may be used for probing some shallow brush and reeds where the length would be nice. Conversely, much of the use will be hovering vertically over deep sunken humps and brush. I like a shorter rod in the under 7 foot range for this also. I have asked to make sure a shorter rod wouldn't be preferred and the request is for longer. He does a
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I have a request to build a crappie rod for vertical jigging deeper crappies in 15 to 25 feet of water. The user wants the tip to be quite light and soft so they can visually see a bite. Much like the noodle rods that are popular for icefishing now. He's currently using a Shakespear Crappie Hunter rod which has the soft tip, but it has very little backbone. He's requested a rod with a tip sof
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Common sense is about as common these days as proper grammar and spelling. I ended up building the rod using the 27x method and am quite happy with how it casts and feels. I may build a kr concept rod some day but felt 27x worked well for what i wanted from this rod. Thanks to everyone that contributed.
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Thank you for jumping back on Norman and Tom. The 27x layout has worked well for me but aspects of the kr system are appealing also. To layout the kr system, is there any manual work i should do, or do i simply follow the gps measurements? If I'm using the Minima guides do I need to be concerned about the "mid rod stress that the Fuji KB guides addres? Thank you for your help thus far!
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Some interesting comments, thank you. Norm, I may be confused but the article i read about Building the kr concept does use the table edge to set the choker and if I remembet correctly the stripper guide as well. That's where my confusion started. The gps software is so drastically different than what the build directions state that something doesn't make sense to me. I'm also a bit confused a
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Hi everyone. I'm building a walleye jig pitching rod from a 6'9" mlxf blank, and planning to use 8 pound braid. Using Minima match guides for the reduction train and their number 4 fly guides for runners. I went to use the 27x guide layout, which has the choker set about 46.8 inches from the spool shaft for the 1.735" spool I'm using. It looks like I need to use a size 20 Minima matc
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I think it would be too hard to quantify. Break at what amount of pounds? But at what angle? Severe sharp bend in the tip or a 90 degree bend from tip to butt? Those two scenarios will break at a drastically different load. I could probaly snap an ul spinning rod with 8 pound test, or i could load just the butt and pick up a 15 pound weight. I think it depends too much to give a number without so
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Great info Matthew, thank you. I will actually end up buildimg on both the Immortal 68 medium blank and the 69 ml Avid. My uncle asked to to build a rod for him and uses a lot of 1/4 to 3/8 jig heads with plastic bodies so we decided the medium may work best for him. The 72 ml is still on my radar for a future build. How would you rate the speed of the 72ml vs the 68m? Tucker
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For those that do thread wrap and epoxy, is that as permanent as I'm picturing it to be? If a reel needs to be removed is it possible to do without tearing the cork up?
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Thanks to everyone that replied. I've built many ice rods and a handful of open water rods, and so far have been happy with all. Much better than standard factory rods. I do what many of you mention to make sure fit is good but to this point have always reamed individual cork rings. Maybe i will try gluing up a handle and reaming to see how that goes on one of my next builds. Appreciate the advic
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Thanks everyone. I basically understand the process, but maybe I'm missing something about reaming an entire handle. It seems that in the case of using a scrap blank for the reaming, unless the taper of that blank matches the taper of the rod you are building exactly, there is going to be some degree of slop by the time the full length is reamed. Using multiple reamers of different diameter an
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Been reading a few posts about reaming handle material and wanted to add this question. How important is a close fit of the cork to the rod blank? My perception is that the closer the better. A close to perfect fit will require less epoxy and as a result less weight added to the rod. But how important is that? The extra weight of the epoxy is all at the handle end of the rod and not much we
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Thanks for the input everyone. Makes perfect sense to setup for the larger reel and line setup, and yes, a 2500 series should typically be in the ballpark if not on the larger size for the rods I'm building. Great advice, thank you.
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I also just use mono backing. Its cheap, simple, and works. It lets me reduce how much braid I have to use to fill the spool, but I'm fishing freshwater fish that don't peel line off the spool either.
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Lets just say for the sake of discussion they may use a large arbor spinning reel or a 1000 sized shimano. Two much different spool sizes. What do most rod manufacturers use? I like my custom rods better, but my factory rods never struck me as casting poorly either, and i will still be using lighter guides than factory with minimas. Good lesson in just getting close, but what if we have no ide
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Hello, I will start this by saying I don't want to start an argument with this question, so here goes. I'm wondering what it is that everyone loves about the Croix SCIV blanks. They cost more than "average" for either the blank or finished rod, but in comparing fairly similar blanks, the blank weights on them are not much lighter, or at all lighter than blanks costing much much le
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Been using the 27X concept on rods I have been building myself. Somebody would like me to build them a rod or two, but they can't decide on what reel or what size reel they want to stick with. Obviously, production rods can't be made with the guide sizing and spacing based on a certain reel. What is the best way to setup spinning guides on a rod if the reel that will be used is an unknown?
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Been thinking about building a rod with a Pflueger Arbor reel, and was thinking about using the Fuji KR guide spacing system. This system seems to set the guide ring sizes based on line used rather than spool diameter like the 27X does. I've also heard just a few people with the opinion that a larger stripper guide casts further, especially as the reel spool diameter increases. My question
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I may be wrong but i thought it was the same blank, and the Mojo rods were just the split grip models.
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Thank you so far for the good replies. I thought about the 7'2" ml Immortal blank too, but would trimming 4 to 6 inches from the butt turn it into a mod/fast action? I was hoping to build on an xf blank to see what that's all about so don't want to get too slow. In comparison, my main jigging rods are an old St. Croix Premier 66mlf and an older Bass Pro Shops Bionic Blade 6'6" mlf. I'm
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