I’m in Canada as well (Toronto) and shipping anything whether it’s a Canadian or American supplier is very expensive. I’ve been using a mailbox forwarding company that gives me a US address for their receiving facility and then brings it over the border to a local warehouse, maybe something you can look into? Feel free to email me for more info
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Thanks for sharing, I’m in Canada as well waiting for a sale to place my first order. I wonder if people in the US have to ship the blanks back for replacement, on some posts it sounds like they are just sent the replacement blanks. Maybe it depends how off from spec they are? After paying $75 USD for shipping I would be frustrated to have to pay the same amount to ship it back with no guarante
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I have had a good experience from Hydra, bought an fl4 and fl5 blank. Alex has great customer service and fast shipping, and the blanks feel great so far. Haven’t fished it yet but I feel like the fl4 medium heavy+ blank will be very versatile and sensitive.
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I built a swimbait rod for pike on the Phenix M1 inshore 7’11 ml blank and like it a lot, it is lightweight which is nice for throwing swimbaits all day. It is only rated 1-3 oz though so you may want to step up a power in the blank for your purpose. I use it for 2 oz glidebaits and works well. Musky blanks may serve you well too, I had the st croix legend tournament and legend elite Muskie sl
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No feelings hurt and I appreciate all the feedback! It helped me to improve and hopefully make a better build for next time. I fished it again yesterday in the rain, with a bucktail jigs, crankbaits and jerkbaits exclusively with another reel spooled with braid. I found the sensitivity better than the last time, but the rod is different from other rods I've fished before and just takes some get
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I think it would be interesting to see how the builders have built up these rods as well (whether or not they have shortened or lengthened the blank, component choices, handle length, etc) but if you want to keep it strictly about the blanks that's cool too.
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Thanks for all the positive comments! I definitely have to put the rod through more testing and I'm excited to go this weekend and fish different presentations with it as suggested above. I still have a lot to learn and experiment with to find the perfect rod build for a certain technique for me. I'd be interested in seeing what everyone's favorite rod build looks like, maybe in the other threa
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Everyone fishes differently and has different preferences in what they want in a rod and that's what makes custom rod building so interesting. I appreciate everyone's opinions in what works for them and am taking bits and pieces to figure out what I like the most for my fishing style. I don't expect to make the perfect rod for myself but hopefully each rod will be closer and closer to my ideal
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Lol Ben I feel like I should've just kept my mouth shut and fished it a little more to get a better impression. Norm I'm going to try it this Sat with Texas rig worm like you described, I was lightly touching the tip on the floor yesterday and did seem to feel the vibration sometimes. I think maybe I was expecting too much out of it from a semi slack line presentation in the jerkbait, and it's
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I read online that on some high end rods (eg G Loomis nrx) people claimed to be able to feel the bite while fishing with a jerk bait. I didn't know if it was possible and was using lower end rods before so decided to try on a high modulus blank. Most of the time in my experience the pike hit the lure on the pause, and the next jerk just feels heavier, that's why I tested how well I could feel t
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Thanks for all the replies, I will definitely use foam arbors next time and have learned a lot from this experience. I will try Ben's method and see how much sensitivity is lost and report back. I learned how to build rods watching a lot of videos on YouTube and they all seemed to use the tape arbors so I didn't know any better. I wasn't trying to say the blank was bad, my build just didn't li
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Ohh ya I'll try that out, thanks!
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Thanks for the replies guys. I only made a few casts with the braid as the reel the braid was on was giving me problems, I can try it again with braid and see again. I didn't try the first rod I built but I tried the third rod I built, a phenix m1 inshore throwing 5" lures and it was great. Perhaps the blank is too fast for me. Any chance the carbon insert might be dampening some of the
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I'm wondering if it might be the carbon insert or the hood cover dampening the feel and want to know how others who love the rod have built theirs. I don't want to jump quickly to conclusions and blame it on the blank, it was my second rod build and there's a good chance I could have sized something improperly or installed something wrong. I've had a lot of help from people on here that know a
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Finally got to test out my Point Blank PB691MXF rod yesterday, and to be honest I found it lacking in sensitivity, which baffled me since everything I read about it seemed to be good. I tried it with jerkbaits, squarebills, and a mepps spinner. It just didn't seem to transmit vibration into my hand much. I thought at first with the jerkbait since it is a semi slack line technique it might not b
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Thanks for the insight everyone, I think I may go with size 6 running guides that are ringed and still think about if I want double foot guides all the way up or transition from double foot to single foot guides. The reason I ended up going with Lt musky and legend elite musky factory rods before was because I found I was having aggravated rotator cuff and shoulder pain with some heavier rods I
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Hey Anthony, thanks for your reply. I've looked at the rod geeks blanks but don't really like the feel of the mojo musky rods, I was using the legend tournament and a legend elite musky rods, do you know how the rod geeks blanks compare to the finished st croix rods? I'm also in Canada so shipping costs are pretty prohibitive (rod geeks only ships to USA and it would cost me about $90 to drive
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Novice builder here looking to build a budget musky rod for myself, thinking of the Pac Bay Arctos Musky AMC997-2 blank. Anyone have any experience with this blank or Pac Bay blanks in general? The weight seems really light for something that is supposed to throw up to 8 oz lures. Also thinking of trying Pac Bay minima guides for this build as the prices look great, but I haven't found a lot
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Yeah I think that's what I'm going to end up doing thanks guys!
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Michael Danek Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Looked at Winn grips? They are used on many > heavier duty rods. If you're looking for the cork > look, they obviously won't be for you, but they do > work very well. Much better grip than cork under > all conditions (wet/cold especially). Yeah I built one rod with winn grips and one with ca
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Spencer Phipps Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 4 inch grips aren't long enough? Split grips were > designed to minimize cork use and to be no longer > than necessary to rest your hand on 2 1/2" was all > I've every needed on any of my rods, bass or > otherwise. I install a full grip more often than > split grips, splits aren't always
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roger wilson Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Brian, > Can you build a grip yourself? > > If not, perhaps you have a nearby rod builder who > makes grips, could help you out. > I've never built one myself but I have a friend who has a lathe that i can try to learn how to use. I'm in Toronto, Canada and I'm not sure if there's any
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Hi everyone, thanks to your help I finished my bass rod and I'm trying to get my next rod figured out. I bought a phenix m1 inshore 7'11 ml blank (1-3 oz lure) that I plan on using for 1.8 oz jointed glide baits that I paint. I'm having difficulty finding split grips that fit with it, a lot of the split grips I see seem pretty short and small and meant more for bass rods. The butt section is a
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Thanks for all your help Norm! The anglers resource site is awesome. Definitely learned a lot and I haven't even got my rod parts yet. Hopefully I won't mess it up too much haha I have a feeling this is going to be another great hobby and I really appreciate the feedback I've gotten from this forum from everyone
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Thanks for the replies, I think I understand now. I thought the kb's were running guides too, but I realize that they are different. So I'm thinking bckwfg10 double foot guide to bckbfg 5.5 single foot belly guide, to 2 bckbfg 5.0 single foot belly guides, and the rest bckbfg 4.5 single foot running guides (I'll buy 9 and static test from the belly guides onwards to get the distance and number o
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Perhaps daiwa's t-wing system on reels might help with that? Allows greater room and slightly different angles to exit the reel while casting. I don't really see a difference on mine with other reels but maybe it's just that the guide placement of my production rods @#$%& haha
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Alright so luckily there was a part backordered for my order and I was able to change it. Instead of the guides I have currently, I switched it to a bkw10 going into the fazlite kB 5.5 and then ordered 10 fazlite kB 4.5 and kept the fazlite tip top. If there's something I should order instead of that I think I still have time to change it Monday. Thanks for helping this newbie out!
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Thanks Norm! So with the fazlite guides I currently have, what would you recommend? I can either get new stripper guides or get a new guide system altogether.
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Thanks for the kind words and helpful advice! I was hesitant to spend so much on my first build but shipping to Canada is around $45usd so I figured why not build something I will use for a long time. I actually have a st croix sc2 spinning rod I will be building first to learn simple wraps and epoxy. It looks like my order is on a short hold, from the responses it looks like I should rethink
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Hey everyone, I was looking at a rod to buy myself for my birthday and decided to try my hand at building one instead. I mostly throw jerkbaits, crankbaits and unweighted senkos for bass/small pike. Here is what i ordered- point blank 69mxf blank, bt250 winn grip butt grip, 3.5" multipurpose winn grip, PTSMPJK 17 Fuji casting reel seat with hidden thread and back stop, BR230DR base r
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