flightliner
Well-known member
I used to put my own fly and speci rods together myself deriving great satisfaction from doing so, and on occasion customising them to suit my needs.
over the years this has been by inbuilding both long and short quivertips, exchanging ring sliding reel fittings to fuji types, abbreviated butts, squirting expanding foam down a rod butt section attempting to alter the playing action ( dont try it on a Hardy) -- it didnt work btw.
Painting the rod tip white for chubbing at night, and rubbing them down to elliminate "flash".
Whatever I thought that would give me a better chance of catching.
Recantly I purchased a pair of Shakespeare agility 12' feeder rods that Will be used mainly for light to medium weight fish on the Trent. The only downsiďe for me was the thickness of the butts that were 25 mm in diametre and comprised of both cork and duplon , Tho ok in the main I had minor reservations about the butt so, being ridiculously cheap I,ve asked a rod building friend of mine to strip out the duplon, replace it with cork along with (maybe, if the original isnt suitable) a fuji screw down reel fitting.Then , in his lathe reduce the diametre down to 20 mm.
A final spin to get rid of a 6" length of thick varnish protecting the rods logo before finnishing the whole rod with a wire wool rubdown to elliminate any last vestige of shine , particularly the whipping on the runners to give it a final dressing down----- a sort of wheeler dealers in reverse.
Anyone else done things similar in the past or present ??
over the years this has been by inbuilding both long and short quivertips, exchanging ring sliding reel fittings to fuji types, abbreviated butts, squirting expanding foam down a rod butt section attempting to alter the playing action ( dont try it on a Hardy) -- it didnt work btw.
Painting the rod tip white for chubbing at night, and rubbing them down to elliminate "flash".
Whatever I thought that would give me a better chance of catching.
Recantly I purchased a pair of Shakespeare agility 12' feeder rods that Will be used mainly for light to medium weight fish on the Trent. The only downsiďe for me was the thickness of the butts that were 25 mm in diametre and comprised of both cork and duplon , Tho ok in the main I had minor reservations about the butt so, being ridiculously cheap I,ve asked a rod building friend of mine to strip out the duplon, replace it with cork along with (maybe, if the original isnt suitable) a fuji screw down reel fitting.Then , in his lathe reduce the diametre down to 20 mm.
A final spin to get rid of a 6" length of thick varnish protecting the rods logo before finnishing the whole rod with a wire wool rubdown to elliminate any last vestige of shine , particularly the whipping on the runners to give it a final dressing down----- a sort of wheeler dealers in reverse.
Anyone else done things similar in the past or present ??