Custom Rods

[hoglaw]

All of the threads about wanting to buy rods, and which rod/combo to buy got me motivated. I've built custom rods for a while now, mostly as a hobby for myself, but also quite a few for friends, family, and paying customers. There are some amazing craftsmen out there who can do incredible things with thread, inlays, and wood work. I'm not one of them. I got into building rods because I wanted to fish with the absolute best equipment possible, and there came a point where off the rack gear just couldn't do what I wanted it to, regardless of the price. While I do add some decorative elements when I'm not as concerned about adding weight, or the location of the weight to be added makes it a net benefit to the rod, I've never been motivated to learn the intricacies of diamond wraps, woodwork, etc. What does motivate me is building state of the art tools that are the very best for their job, bar none. I do this so that I will have an arsenal of technique and even lure specific rods that are beyond comparison in sensitivity, weight, comfort, casting distance and accuracy. And that I can do. I have built pistol grip shorties for tossing spinnerbaits underneath limbs and into cypress knees for the white river refuge. I built 7' spinning rod with enough backbone to handle donkey sized carp, but capable of tossing a 1/8 oz jig right in front of their face from range, and getting by with 1/16. My recent build (pics attached) is a 7'6" flipping stick for a customer that wants to pitch and flip 1oz jigs with pinpoint accuracy, but wants the most sensitive setup possible. It is spiral wrapped (meaning the third guide through the tip are on the bottom of the rod) with fuji's heavy duty micro guides. It's incredibly light but will never see anything less than 30lb braid.

I should have kept a portfolio when I started this, but I never really considered the possibility of doing it for other people on a regular basis. But lately I seem to be doing more of it, so I figured I'd put the word out here as well. I'm not in this to make a living - I have a job that I work a lot of hours at for that. But this is time consuming and expensive, and while I can guarantee that I'm cheaper than a true professional rod builder, it's still not cheap to have the best of the best. You can easily spend more on a custom rod than a high end off the rack rod if you want to. That being said, I also have the ability to produce rods that, while they may not be the absolute best, will blow away any off the rack rod in the same price range. There are a lot of options.

In any event, if you have any desire to explore the possibilities of what a custom rod can do, shoot me a PM. I guaranty that you will be blown away with any rod that leaves my house, and if you aren't, I'm more than happy to keep it for myself.

[rps]

While I was dinged up year before last, hoglaw tied up blanks and materials I had bought to make myself. He did a great job and I have enjoyed the pair of rods for over a year. I can vouch for the quality of what he does.

[gotmuddy]

I would love a really nice tube fishing spinning rod.

[hoglaw]

Randy:

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Muddy: I'd be happy to talk with you about it if you wanted. I'd want you to try a couple of rods I've made myself to get your feedback first because that's a pretty individualized deal. A lot of folks could call a lot of different things "tube rods," and what I like in a tube rod you might not. But I could for sure build you one you'd be happy with.

[WakenLake]

Whats the ballpark on a spinning jigging or worm rod?

Id rather have a custom than an expensive rod from the store.

Im looking for something super sensitive but wont break off.

[hoglaw]

Warren, I'll send you a PM

[Guest]

I've seen HogLaws rods first hand.

They're designed for specific functions in mind.

That's why you buy a custom rod.

I was real impressed with the spinning rod that he caught the carp with. I thought it was odd looking at first, due to the spiral wrap & micro guides but that went away after casting it. If you put small braid on the reel it might double your casting range.

[hoglaw]

It's like I was explaining to someone earlier trophy - a spinning rod built with micro guides has to be tailor made based upon the dimensions of the reel that's going to be used with it. That's the only way you can properly position the choke guide, and if it's not in the right place you lose some or all advantages of micro guides in the first place. In some cases, they can even have a negative impact on overall performance if the rod is not set up absolutely correctly.

Line makes a big difference too. I haven't really tried any small diameter braid. But I do know that I get rediculous results out of PLine's CX Premium, which is florocarbon coated copoly. And I've had some bad results with cheap florcarbon. It's a lot like buying a porsche. The tolerances are tight and it's tuned for performance. If you put E85 or even regular in it, it's going to run like crap. If you're going to get into micro guides, you really have to do it right to take advantage of what they allow you to do, or you're not going to get any benefit. The Duckett rods and a lot of the off the rack spinning rods with way too many guides are evidence of that. Their designers know that they have to be set up very generally or folks would hate them. But there's no comparison between one of those and one that is built correctly for the specific reel and application. That's not so much the case with baitcasting rods, but the refusal of the commercial manufacturers to spiral the guides to the bottom of the rod makes them have to use WAY too many guides on the micro setups, and they sacrifice a lot of performance.

[dave potts]

There's an interesting article in the latest issue of Rodmaker magazine on guide placement on spinning rods. The article was written by Tom Kirkman, the editor, and he claims that the first guide (the choke guide) is placed in the same spot regardless the rod length. That was using conventional guide placement, not spiral. I was surprised at that statement.

[hoglaw]

Tom definitely knows what he's talking about and his book is the first one I ever read when I started doing this. The choke guide is in the same spot regardless of rod length because it's placement is relative to reel diameter, and it's measured from where the spool lip plane bisects the rod. Let's say that measuring the spool diameter and multiplying by a factor of 27-30, depending on what you use, yeilds a product of 60cm. Your choke guide is 60cm above the spool lip plane whether the rod is 5 feet long or 10 feet long.

But here's where I'm confused. The choke guide in a concept system is the smallest guide on the rod, and all guides above it are the same size. The choke guide is not the bottom guide - it's the bottom running guide. On MOST spinning rods, that's the third guide from the bottom and you generally have two (or 3 on big rods) progressively larger guides below the choke, with however many identical sized "running guides" above the choke. That's the true concept guide placement system that Fuji credits itself with pioneering (no idea whether that's true or not).