Build your own rod - Finding the spine and guide placing

This is part 5 of the Build your own rod series. In this part we will find the spine and place the guides on our blank.

As fist step we clean all blank parts with alcohol. The next step is to find the spine of each blank part.

The spine or overlap is the weakest and strongest part in the blank. This is caused by the base material, because the carbon or fiberglass mat has a start and a end and therefore there is more or less material at these places.

Finding the spine can be done in several ways, my method is to simply hold the part in one hand and press with the other hand in the middle of it. When start rolling it now, you will notice the blank is bouncing into two positions of the blank. One of these points is most of the time stronger than the other. I prefer to put this point to the underside of the rod and place my guides onto this point. In this way I have more power when throwing the fly line forward. But this is only my preference, many others might have a different view on this topic.

Build your own rod - Assemble the handle

This is Part four of the Build your own rod series.
After selecting all materials and components we finally can start building our rod.

As the very first action, we clean our blank with the alcohol to remove finger prints, lipids or anything else. This will help the epoxy to settle down on every part of our blank.

Build your own rod - Reelseat, grips, guides and thread

After selecting the blank for our custom rod, in this part we will handle all other hardware parts which we will need to build our rod. First we will start with the reel seat.

There are several models of reel seats for flyrods on the market. Different styles, colors and materials you can choose between.
Depending on your blank and the expected color scheme you want to build your rod, you can choose color and also the style.
Most important for me is to check the inner diameter of the reel seat and the max diameter of you blank at the position where the reel seat will be placed. If you don't check this before and your reel seat don't fit on your blank, you're in the shit.

Second I check if my desired reel can be hold by the reel seat. Most producer/ re-seller place this information on their websites. There is nothing worse than notice that your reel doesn't fit to your reel seat after you finished your rod.

After these two points are clarified, I search for the style type. There are so many types of reel seats you can choose from. You have the classic ones without any fancy stuff, then the split grip with wood insert, some with carbon tube insert, etc. Best is you check some styles on a website of a rod building shop and select the one you like.
Currently I like the simple "classic" reel seat, no fancy stuff. I have a lot of fun building a plain clean rod.

The one that got away

Sometimes fishing can give you the best highs you can think of. Like when you catch a really big fish in an unexpected situation or moment. You're pumped, the body is shaking and full of adrenaline.

But it can also be very hard and unfair. Most of us will endure this at least once in the fishing career and we can't prevent this from happening.
Imagine the following:

You're fishing a very hard water where not every day is catch day.
You grind your fly on all good places where you know the fish are holding or feeding, but nothing worked for the last few weeks.
Out of the sudden you get the bite you are waiting for so long. There is a heavy opponent on the other site of the line and you directly feel this is the one fish, you are after for a long time.
But then the line gets slack and you can't really realize what has happen.
Depraved you strip the line in and check the leader. Everything is okay, the fly is still in tact and the hook is sharp as a razor blade.

Every time this happen to me, I want to scream, throw my rod into the water and roll down on the bottom like an embryo. I know that's how fishing can be, but for that moment I'm just frustrated.
One thing I learned is to keep going and do the next cast. You have to get the negative thoughts out of your brain and focus on fishing again. I realized when I think too much about a lost fish, I can't focus on the further fishing and might fuck up another good bite.
Be positive, focus on the fishing and have confidence in your doing. Then the next bite of the big one will come and you are able to land it.

Build your own rod - Choosing the blank

This is the second part of the Build your own rod- series and we will handle the topic of choosing the right blank.

Build your own rod - Basic tools and materials

Building your own rod has something special, like creating something for yourself after your very own desire.

I've been building rods for several years now, but wouldn't call me a professional in rod building. There are so much guys out there doing this as a full time job and they create pure pieces of art.

My rods are more or less functional based, I think because I don't have that much patience on doing the fancy stuff.

But what I learned from talking to other guys about rod building is, that a lot of fisher man are aware of starting to build their own rod because of the quite overwhelming topic on how to start and what you need to build a rod. I always say that it's not that complicated and with a little bit of skill you will manage to build a rod with that you can catch fish.

Sure the first one doesn't look like a piece of art, but the more you practice, the better the result will become.

For that reason I will show you in a series of posts how to start rod building and you might get a little bit addicted to it.

From Zero to Zero. At least you know nothing

While scrolling through all of my old fishing pictures, I found on that amazed me more than all the others. The story behind is the following:
It’s Christmas 2012 and a yung man got his first fly tying vise. In the local fishing shop the bought a zonker patch and some dubbing.
In this hour he tied his first fly ever.


Seven years later I see this picture of my very first tied fly ever and I look back at the progress I made since then. Without any knowledge of flytying and flyfishing I started and tried to make my may.

There were a lot of ups and downs through the whole way, mistakes and eye openers. The Internet is a great opinion to build up knowledge on how to do and not to do, but it can also be frustration because you were overwhelmed by all these great fishing pictures and big fishes compared to your catchless tries and “failures”.
My opinion is, that you have to find the right path between getting inspiration from all of the content and practicing it on the vise and test it at the water.

Recently I caught myself thinking I know a lot of stuff related to flytying and flyfishing, but I immediately realized that I only see the tip if the iceberg and there is so much more to learn.
More materials, more techniques, different use cases and so on.

In the end I feel a little bit like Jon Snow in Gmae of Thrones. After seven seasons of flytying I think I know a lot of stuff, but in the end I have to admint that I know nothing.

The one bite

You strip your fly through the water.

You strip your fly and throw it back. You don't search the fish, you know it's down there in the pool. You have confidence in your doing and in your fly. You know every second the desired tug can happen. And then, out of the sudden like the RKO of Randy Orten, you can feel the pull in your line and the hell of a fight is starting.
This is why you flyfish for the toothy predators. 
Nevermind if you're at a Lake, River or in the Salt. Only this pull counts.