Simple perch pattern

As the whole world is now affected by the corona virus and we all get showered with news in the TV, radio or the social media 24 hours a day/ seven days a week I think we all need some minutes to forget all this crazy shi**. Don't get me wrong, I'm really concerned about this and I hope every person I love will stay healthy and we will get through this as soon as possible. But sometimes everyone of us need some minutes rest from all of this. In that time I do some fly tying, where I can turn off my head and only focus on the taper of my streamer. Exactly for this situation this SBS is made for.

Build your own rod - Wrapping the guides

This is part 6 of the build your own rod series and after we have placed all guides properly to the blank, we can start wrapping them.


Depending on your personal choice you can wrap the guides with nylon thread or silk.
The biggest difference between nylon thread and silk is that silk becomes translucent/ nearly invisible when applying epoxy finish to it.
For sure also nylon thread is changing its color, white ones is also becoming nearly translucent, but not invisible and the colored ones have the tendency to get darker.
If you don't know whether you like the translucent wraps or you don't know how your thread will change color, you should do some tests on your blank. A good place for such tests is the butt section of your rod blank in the area where the reel seat and grip will be placed. There you can do test wraps and cover them with finish. In the end the reel seat and grip will cover everything so nothing of your tests is visible.

Before I start I want to point out that this is the way I have learned it and I'm not saying this is the best way for wrapping the guides. There are for sure several other methods of how to start a wrap and how to wrap the guides at all, but until now I had no negative experience with it.

First of all we attach the thread to the blank with a piece of tape on the right or left side of our guide.
Then we start spinning the blank slowly and move our thread over the guide to the point where our wraps should start.

Glass is not dead

I always was the carbon guy. The carbon blanks are light, fast, strong and you feel each tug to your bait.

Only for catfish rods I said composite is the best material because of its durability.

But then I saw some really cool pictures on Instagram of how a glass fly rod was build.

I was fascinated by the process and the finished rod. Clear blue blank, chrome guides and thread wraps which were becoming invisible during epoxy coating.

This was something I wanted to do by myself. So I ordered a cheap #3 glass blank, a grip, some guides and started wrapping.

For sure it wasn't my masterpiece, but fishing a rod you've build by yourself and catching fish with it makes much more fun.

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.