Rod Building

Of the many pastimes of fly anglers, building rods occupies a bit more of a niche when compared to tying flies, or collecting reels, or hand-making leaders. Like with fly tying, there’s some specialized equipment needed, but in contrast, tying a fly takes minutes where building a rod can literally take days. That shouldn’t scare you off, though–-if you have a bit of patience and enjoy building things, rod building can be quite satisfying.

Also similar to tying flies, there is a certain angling thrill to be had when you make an inch-perfect cast and catch a fish with a rod crafted by your own hand. That hard-pulling 8-lb smallmouth buffalo that took 15 minutes to wrangle into your net with your custom 4-weight glass rod (that you built for smaller fish!) reveals to your inner craftsman (and maybe a fishing buddy) that you quite possibly knew what you were doing when you built that rod.

One advantage, for me at least, to building your own rods is that you can build the exact rod you want. Extra fast, 9-ft, 7-weight graphite rod with custom acrylic insert and a carbon fiber grip and fighting butt? No prob. There are dozens of excellent rod blank manufacturers making graphite and fiberglass blanks for every fly fishing purpose under the sun. The photo at the top of this page is my first build. The epoxy is a little pregnant, but it still fishes great.

After selecting a rod blank and all the hardware that will be attached, you start with the guides. The locations of the guides are provided by the manufacturer of the blank to optimize the performance of the rod. The first guide (nearest the reel) is the largest, called the stripping guide, and its interior diameter will be made of a material like ceramic, agate, or other hard, smooth material to allow for easy stripping of fly line with minimal wear.

The rest of the guides are usually “snake” guides with two “feet” that are attached to the rod blank with careful windings of thread around the feet that are coated in a slow-curing epoxy, with the final guide being the “tiptop” that is glued onto the tip of the final rod section. Many rod builders will use various colors and winding patterns of thread to show off their skill in rod building. Some builders will even weave images of fish and other things into their thread windings!

All fly rods will have a grip and reel seat, and these two things come a in a vast array of materials, shapes, and prices. The grip and reel seat slide onto the butt section of the rod blank, glued with special epoxy, and depending on the rod weight, there might also be a fighting butt attached.

If you’ve been thinking about a specific rod you’d like to have, and you enjoy making things, rod building may be something worth pursuing.