The first fish hooks fashioned by man were circle hooks. Circle hooks have been around for hundreds of thousands of years (No offense to conflicting religious doctrines) . IGFA elders suspended their "circle hook only" rule for a year - either to allow extremely slow learners how to use a circle hooks, or to pander to a North Carolina tournament. (Incidentally, it is very difficult to
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Wrapping your leader behind your reel spool and securing your fly in the leg of your first stripping guide is a better alternative to a hook keeper. That way you keep the nail knot or loop on the end of your fly line out of the guides, enabling you to quickly fire the perfect cast to the big one who just appeared - without having to futz around shaking your line-leader connection out of your guid
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What is the best method for creating small, neat, durable and easily seen alignment dots on a multi-section rod?
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A low power telescope, like cheap opera glasses, makes deviations in alignment much easier to notice.
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Tubing is a pain. You have to slide it down the length of the blank. Tape is a pain. You can't adjust the guide's position without unwinding the tape, and then it probably won't stick. Go to a sewing goods store. Buy a spool of elastic thread. It's cheap and easy to find. Roughly position your guide, take four or five turns stretching the elastic thread, and tie a square knot in the thread. Kee
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In the great majority of cases the demand for new rods is drummed up by advertising rather than the rod's performance. Every year a "new and improved" model seeks to make last year's rod obsolete. The properties of S-glass are substantially different from both E-glass and graphite. S-glass or S-glass/graphite composite blanks really would be new and might even truly be improved. At an
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I wish more blanks composed of S-glass were available. S-glass seems like a nice compromise between E-glass and graphite. The proliferation of special-task blanks offer a variety in tapers but not materials. Why not?
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Hunter Armstrong, your comments make perfect sense. Unfortunately, perfect sense is largely superfluous in today's market place. Consumers don't buy utility, they attempt to buy expertise, recognition, respect, even immortality. I'm quite sure many custom rodbuilders know what I mean.
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If a customer is going to pay a premium price for "super hard guide rings" that customer is entitled to something more than marketing jive or dubiously motivated anecdotal praises; something like an objective measurement, such as a Vickers scale rating. Vickers ratings are not very difficult to determine.
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A Rainshadow hot shot blank will cast well and has tremendous backbone. They make a versatile fly rod.
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Ask your customer what type of connection he/she will use to join leader to line. Nail knots will be largest, needle knots slightly smaller, co-axial braided mono loops smaller yet. It's hard to guess the diameter of welded loops. The rush to micro guides on a #6 rod is a bit difficult to understand. Shoulder fatigue and maximum distance casting are not big issues for the great majority of situat
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The easiest way I know of to thin epoxy is to heat it.
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Eugene Moore made an excellent observation above. "Tippet size is dictated by the fish and water conditions." An #8 tippet will break most fly rods if they are high-sticked when the fish is close. With this warning in mind the best size tippet to use is the one which allows you to hook and land the most fish on that day, and the size of that tippet will be a function of the fishing env
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The only guide frames currently available which are immune to corrosion in a salt water environment are solid (not plated) titanium. Have there been any attempts to produce polymer or glass-reinforced guide frames? Such guides would never corrode and would likely be lighter than any metal frame guide.
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Somebody is going to try to sell you one muskie rod blank for jerkbaits, another for crankbaits, another for trolling, another for jigging, etc. You must decide upon a compromise blank or put out for the full Monty.
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This concern about minute differences in weight at the casting fulcrum of a 4 wt. fly rod confirms the belief that "nothing succeeds like excess." In this situation I would be more concerned about the durability and ease of use of the arbor than its weight. A 10 wt. rod required to make 80 foot casts with a big fly in a 15 mph. wind might demand different priorities.
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I have made transitions between cork tape and reel seat and between cork tape and rod blank by building a thread ramp and covering the ramp with several coats of epoxy. There is no reason why such a ramp would not work with any type of grip or reel seat. I begin the thread ramp with coarse thread evened out as smoothly as possible and whip finished. Then I saturate this ramp with "low-bui
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REC sold an integrated extendable fighting butt a few years ago. It was coarse threaded and reverse threaded and was actually quite easy to deploy after a hook-up with a strong fish. It was a bit heavy and tricky to glue to the blank, and without trimming the butt section of the blank this section became longer than the others, creating a storage problem. Still it was handy, loss-proof, easily de
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Many so-called "Made in America" products from electronics to automobiles are comprised chiefly of parts made offshore. All jingoism aside, such products are more accurately described as "Assembled in America." Are rod blanks comprised of imported graphite and resin but shaped in the U.S. more accurately "Made in America" or "Assembled in America?"
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The compressibility of cork and its heat-related expansion/contraction rate are known qualities, or could be ascertained without much trouble. What "filler material" most closely approximates the compressibility and expansion characteristics of cork? With this information in hand and the use of the dovetail of joinery or the undercutting of dentistry a filled cork grip should be suffici
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For some time I have read that sports equipment employing graphite materials rely upon the several types of graphite material built for the defense and aerospace industry and made to their specifications, not, say, to the specs of rod blank fabricators. Is this true? I recently read in an outdoors magazine that the military will not release its newest and most highly developed graphite to the
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It's not the names of the materials which makes the best blanks. If it were that simple the most extravagant marketing claim would quickly identify the best blank. A wand or a rod blank can be made of everything from pre-stressed concrete to 12th generation nano-titanium graphite. (I made up the last part. Sounds good, doesn't it?) The best way to identify the best blank is to use it. Next to t
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I am completely satisfied with REC Ni-Ti snake guides. Not so much with the REC Ni-Ti tip-tops or stripper guides for fly rods. I fish in salt water. Have you any specific recommendations for rust-PROOF, strong, durable, light weight strippers and tip-tops? What if any are the disadvantages of using casting/spinning stripper guides and tip tops on heavy-duty fly rods?
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Gatti makes several different action blanks, from a gentle parabolic to a cannon tip action. Whether any blank satisfies your needs depends upon the environment in which you will use it. Gattis are all high-quality blanks, but service can be a problem. I recently built a nine foot six weight on a four-piece MHX blank from Mudhole. I prefer a very fast rod and this blank fills that bill while
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Many tarpon in excess of 100 pounds have been landed on click and pawl reels through skilled use of palm pressure on the reel spool. It's a sure bet a C&P fly reel will satisfy the needs of an angler with a five weight fly rod. Disregard your chances of stunt fishing. Even a relatively small permit on a five weight cane rod will either break the rod or kill the permit, or both.
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There are many click & pawl reels out there, any one of which has more than enough drag capability for a four or five weight rod. Click and pawl style reels look and sound "right" with cane rods. In addition, C&P reels are usually quite light, and used reels of this sort can be had at a good price. Take care that whatever reel you select that its reel foot snugly fits the reel
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Tim: You will not see any factory built MHX rods. Any number of other blanks available to rod builders are also available as factory-built rods. To the best of my knowledge MHX blanks are not available as mass produced finished rods, which makes them available only to custom rod builders - assuming the definition of "custom rod builder" is any person who builds his or her own rod.
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Mudhole MHX. Super light, super fast, super warrantee, super service. Available only to custom builders.
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In the past I have had trouble with some reel feet which did not fit reel seats. Is this still a problem, or has some sort of agreement been reached among reel manufacturers about the size and shape of reel seats? It would have to be an international agreement. In a Cabela's fishing catalog I just counted 12 different brands of reels offering 146 different models, most offered in several sizes. O
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New York's Salmon River is not too small to use a spey rod, but a spey rod probably isn't the most efficient fly rod for fishing there. Most of the fishing is "chuck and duck," involving several split shot. The fly must be presented close to the bottom, and split shot must be no more than a certain distance (check current regs) above the hook to prevent "lining" fish. The Sa
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