Do any of you wrap your own fishing rods?

by jgt, Saturday, July 07, 2018, 06:09 (2332 days ago) @ Otony

When I lived on the Cowlitz River I bought a store brand rod in Kelso. The first steelhead I tied into was a real frisky one and was stripping off line and doing aerials. I yanked back to try to turn him back upriver and the rod broke right above the reel seat. I took it back and put some money with it and got a national brand rod, but still had no faith in it. One day I met an fellow while fishing and he told me he used to work for Eagle Claw. He had me follow him to his house and in his garage he had a bunch of blanks of all different sizes. He told me they were blemished and the company was going to throw them in the dump, so he ask if he could have them. They looked fine to me. He pick out one that was long and fairly large in diameter. Then he slid three more blanks inside that one. The inserted blanks only stuck out of the base about four inches when he was done. To counter that I just wrapped more twine in those areas to smooth out the butt. The last thing I did was put on a rubber tip from a walking stick or cane. The reel seat, eyes, and rod tip were easy to put on and glue. When the eyes were wrapped and varnished it made a fine looking pole that looked custom made. It was nice to have when you tied into a big sturgeon. It still flexed, but never enough to break. Thanks for bringing back those memories.