I'm working on a surf meat stick, and the blank (Lami GSB 1221MH) is a real pool cue, with a butt diameter that rivals the butt measurements of some of my old girlfriends. Where I'm going to put the reel seat is just a hair too big for a size-22 seat, which is the biggest I can find for a tube reel seat with a trigger. Does anyone know of a size-24 trigger reel seat that's available? I could
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Tom K's advice is spot on. If you doubt it, though, try this experiment: try making fishing movements (casting, retrieving, removing a hook from your wife's mouth, etc.) with the empty tube from a roll of paper towels. Then try the same thing with something thinner, say a pencil or a candy cane. If, after trying this experiment for longer than 30 seconds, you don't come to the conclusion
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I've found that marks on a rod can be very, very useful when fishing the surf, especially at night. Striped bass, and probably all fish with size regulations, fall into three easy-to-define categories: definite throwbacks, close calls, and definite keepers. The keeper size limit for stripers in Jersey is 28 inches, and I've found it useful to have a mark on a surf rod (I usually use a hook ke
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I've also used black nail polish, with good results. You have to let it dry also. I've found that it works better than black ink -- when I tried using a sharpie, some of the shine from the raw steel underneath came through the ink, and this doesn't happen with nail polish. And I've not had a problem with the nail polish reacting to the thread epoxy. Black nail polish is not a specialty item a
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It's impossible to judge a setup without actually seeing it, but to me, what you're doing looks pretty good, on paper at least. The spacing is progressive, and the distances seem about right, as does the guide sizing. And it's also impossible to judge distance without seeing how good a caster you are, but pushing 100 yards, with any kind of setup, seems pretty darn good to me as well. I'll pr
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Tom Kirkman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Frankly, the day of the metal framed guide should > have ended 30 years ago. Nylon frames make a lot > more sense and would be in keeping with modern > blank technology. > > .............. Tom, I agree with this, if only because nylon, unlike metal, cannot rust. It makes sense on so many
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If you have the loot, I would look at one of the new Century blanks. I remember reading recently -- I think on Century's website -- that every current distance casting record in the world was made on a Century blank. The last time I pulled on a few of them, I was very impressed with the strength-to-weight ratio on them, and these are meant to be real fishing rods -- they're not gimmicked-up tourn
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Greg, also take a look at the Mudhole IM6 Graphite blanks. These are about the same cost as the E-Glass, and are incredibly good values. I bought a couple of pink ones to build for a couple of little girls, figuring they'd be serviceable-but-nothing-special blanks, and I was very pleasantly surprised by them. I like the blanks so much that I'm going to order a bunch of them to build and give away
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Adam Curtis Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I dont see anything wrong with letting other > consumers know of the issues your having and if a > sponsor doesnt stand behind their products I dont > see any problem with you warning other > builders/consumers about your experience. I don't see any problem with this, either, but please re-read th
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Go to Youtube and search for diamond wrap. There are a couple of vids there that are pretty good at going over basics, even if the wraps shown are pretty pedestrian.
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I had something similar happen to me, with a Mudhole blank, and they were very great in dealing with it. They'll take care of you. For the sake of a good sponsor, please post, either here or in a new post, the resolution of your issue. It's only fair, when something like this is mentioned, to post the resolution to it, especially if you are dealt with fairly, as you almost certainly will be.
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How the rod is used is the factor for me, too. I'll give you two examples: 1) I built a wireline rod for trolling bunker spoons. The thing is Heavy Tackle; the reel, by itself, when filled with 100 yards of wire line, weighs probably five or six pounds. And it is being used to troll metal bunker spoons that weigh over a pound apiece. The rod is a beast, so what difference does throwing in a S
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I'll second what Tom wrote, but will add one thing: when you get the reel seat in the right place, you should know it. You'll find a spot where the rod, both when cast and when retrieved, just feels right. That's where the reel seat goes.
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I do underwraps on virtually all the surf rods I build, and I almost always use metallic A for the underwrap, nylon D for the overwrap (usually black), and no color preserver or finish on the underwraps: I do the underwrap, wrap the guide, and finish everything together. It's faster and easier this way for me. I can tell you that if you do this, you will not have a problem with durability: the la
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Doing an overwrap of Size A thread over and underwrap of Size A thread is a royal pain -- it can be done, but the overwrap thread always seems to get caught in the thread grooves on the underwrap. Using D on the overwrap is so much easier, because you don't have this problem with two different-sized threads. My rule of thumb is that if the rod is heavy enough to warrant the use of overwraps,
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Tom Kirkman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't like adding unnecessary weight. Some will > do it, however, to achieve the balance they want. > This comes down to a matter of personal > preference. > > ................ It also depends on how much weight you have to add to achieve balance. If you can do it with a small amount of wei
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I second (or third) Mudhole's pink blanks. They're pretty good, and the price is certainly right: they're almost a steal.
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Thanks, Mark. That is perfect - just the information I was hoping to find. Cheers.
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Thanks for the tips, guys. Now I'm intrigued: it seems there aren't any saltwater fiberglass fly blanks anywhere, presumably because there's no market for them. I'm going to have to try to find some.
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I've been reading a bit about the mechanics of fly casting (yes, my social life is that exciting), and one of the things that's piqued my interest is that some claim that most modern graphite fly blanks are a poor fit for most fly fishermen: they are too stiff and too fast, are too hard to cast well, and most fly-casters do not have good enough form to be able to take advantage of the benefits th
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I did some perusing of a couple of catalogs, and here are a few seats I found: - Aftco Slip-over aluminum reel seat, model ARS4M, Inside diameter 1 3/16 inches (30.1625 mm) - Pacific Bay graphite seats with cushioned hoods, model G-32C, inside diameter 32 mm You could also use a reel clamp: in the old days, this meant something cheesy like hose clamps, but some of stuff that's availab
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There's really no right or wrong answer here -- either way will work -- but I'm with Matt on this one: I don't like my fingers, or anything else (my palm, for example) touching the locking nuts. This is partly for comfort/ergonomics, but mostly because I don't want the nuts to loosen during fishing, and the more you touch the nuts, the better a chance there is that you can inadvertently loosen th
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John, I know this kind of fishing a bit, and last year, when I went to the Rod Expo, one of the things on my to do list was to find the perfect light / backbay Jersey fluking blank. I'd found it somewhat difficult to find the perfect combination of light/sensitive tip, action, and power / beef in the butt section. Out of all the blanks I fondled, the one I liked the most, and the one I ended
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That's a good comment, Phil. If I could fish bait with a 1 or 2 oz. sinker, this decision would be easy, as there are a million blanks that would work. What makes this situation more challenging is that you need a rod that's strong enough to cast 4 or 5 ounces, but that has a sensitive enough tip to let you feel the bite of a small fish. I still want to experiment with the 8-foot live bai
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Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm going to have some fun doing some experimenting with this.
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One of the things fisherpersons in New Jersey like to do during the summer, after the striper run is over, is ply the surf for panfish, smaller fish whose deliciousness makes up for what they lack in size. The northern kingfish, Menticirrhus saxatilis, is the main target species, but spot, which historically has been a more southern fish, have shown up in good numbers each of the last few summers
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It will depend on the reel, John, and also on the height you'll need to keep the wire off the foregrip (you don't want wire slicing your hand while you're holding the rod and fighting a fish). Because of the latter factor, I went pretty big, I think, and used an HB 30 for the butt guide: I needed a guide this big to get the height I needed to keep the line away from the blank (I would have us
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The last time I used a bunker spoon rod, I used Fuji's HB guides, with Silicon Nitride rings. They've held up great, and they look pretty cool. They are pretty heavy, but bunker spoon rods are heavy tackle, and the weight penatly of these guides, considering the weight of a finished bunker spoon rod, is pretty neglibile. You can also use the more conventional-looking guides. (BHNNG), either in co
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A spinner could be made to work here, but a good conventional would be way better. You'e essentially winching big fish up from the bottom, and a conventional, to me anyway, is way better at this than a spinner is. Get a beefy conventional like a Daiwa Saltist, which is available with or without a levelwind, and make the rod a spiral, and you'll get, for my money, the best kind of rod for this app
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Talk to someone who's familiar with bottom fishing for grouper. That's very similar to the black drum fishery in Delaware Bay: you're basically lifting big, slow fish off the bottom. Find out what the blanks grouper boys use, and go from there. I think that if you're OK with a glass blank, $150 is probably doable.
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