Custom Rod Building Class

[SomeSailor]

Here's something cool. Bob and I are about half way through a class that's taught by Greg's Custom Rods here in Lake Stevens.

If you've ever been interested in building a custom fishing pole, this class is a pretty nice investment for $30. It's taught for 2 nights a week (Tuesday / Wednesday 6:30-8:30) for 2 weeks.

You select the type of rod you're interested (fly, spincasting, trolling, meat rig, etc), and then pick the type and manufacturer of the blank (Lamiglass, Rainshadow, G-Loomis, etc) and other stuff like colors, eyelets and such.

Greg and his wife Marcy walk you through the whole process and when you're done you've got a custom rod that will be something you're proud of.

Fun class and thought I'd share our experiences so far. If mine doesn't turn out too dorked out, I'll share some pictures. :D

[Go Aweigh2452]

Sounds like a great class. I've only done minor repairs to my rods but would love to someday go through a rod building class. We have a rod builder on Bainbridge (Sage) that I think does the same class at times but way more expensive... and its fly rods... then on your side is G-Loomis... in Woodland... But for $30. (for the class), I'd travel over there for a couple of nights... build a new salmon pole...

So what kind of rod are you building Mike?

[SomeSailor]

Building a 9' 6" Pacific Bay salmon rod. It's pretty cool that you can select your own wrap colors, eyes, grips and rod mounts. Really alot more to it than we'd thought, but well worth the $30. I figure the rod will cost about $125-$150 by the time I'm finished, but I'll know how it's built and it'll be fun to build more on my own.

Here's a link to Greg's classes:

GREG'S CUSTOM RODS (http://www.gregscustomrods.com/classes.htm)

He's got a rack full of $900 fly rods so my little salmon pole looks cheap. :)

[Pegasis]

Why would you need guides on a fishing pole? For a fishing pole all you need is a stick and a length of fishing line tied to the end of the stick with a hook tied to the other end of the line.

There's really no magic to building a custom fighing rod. I learned how to replace guides on the fishing rods my father used for commercial fishing. Read a book or two on building handles. Most all of the fishing rods that you'll find on my boat are custom made.

[SomeSailor]

For $30 I can learn from a world-class flyrod builder that's a half mile away. :)

I've wrapped eyelets back on before, but starting from scratch, it's pretty interesting.

Those blanks get expensive quick though. You can drop a hundred bucks on even the cheapest ones.

[Nehalennia]

Isn't it amazing how much you can spend on that stuff?
kinda like other hobbies we know...........

[SomeSailor]

Yeah... but you can choose all your parts and wrap it in the colors you choose. I'm using Blue / Gold wraps (Navy), and Bob is going for the Red / Gold (USMC) colors.

They look good and I'm learning a good deal about the right way to do it. I never knew a carbon rod has a natural spine until now. Or how to calculate the eyelet distance calculation.

[II Lucky]

I just ran across my rod building stuff in my shop the other day. I took a rod building class when I was in college. One of the few classes that I got anything out of or remember. It was cool to build my dad a trout rod and give it to him as a gift. In this day and age of mass production, it is great to see some craftsmanship still around. SS I guarantee you will catch more fish with a personalized rod. You are right about the cost of the blanks, I remember 25 years ago when I was building rods that you could spend quite a bit on a quality blank. I still have a couple of split bamboo fly rods that my grandpa built in the twenties. They hang on the wall of my office. Cool keepsakes.

[SomeSailor]

Yeah... I figured it'd be fun to learn and keep them around as keepsakes. Some of the only things I have of my Grandfathers are old fishing gear. I have an Old Timer Fisherman that he'd sharpened to the point the blade is about 1/4 as thick as it used to be. Also... a wetstone he picked up as a kid in a river in Arkansas. He told me the story of how he spent afternoon as a kid searching for just the right stone. I was 10 when he told me that story, my son is now 17. :)