Fly Rod Repair

It has sure been a cold and wet couple of months. Sorry my stories have been few and far between. Last winter I fished through most of December and I remember fishing the first week of the year, even on New Years Day. Not this year. It has been rare to even see the temperature above freezing. I have tried to put some of this time to good use. What a better time than now to do some rod building.

One project I completed was repairing a broken fly rod. Last year on the last day of fishing the Green River the wind blew a car door closed on my Sage RPL. This was a rod I built twenty years ago. This was my workhorse rod that I used on every trip. It has caught well over a thousand fish.

I took the broken rod into Fish Tech to send back to the manufacturer. It is under a lifetime warranty, so with a shipping and handling fee, Sage sent me back a new blank for the butt section that broke.

I then purchased the needed hardware: Reel Seat, Cork Handle, Winding Check, Hook Keeper, Stripping Guide and Snake Guide. The guides at Fish Tech helped me ream the inside of the handle to the proper size before I even left the store. I wrapped a couple of bushings of masking tape on the end of the blank to make the Reel Seat fit properly.

I ordered some epoxy from Hook & Hackle since I didn’t have any left over from the last time I built a rod. When it arrived I used it to glue the Reel Seat, Handle, and Winding Check in place.

After this was dry, I wrapped on the guides and Hook Keep, using the same spacing I had used on the original rod.  I did have left over Rod Wrap Epoxy for the finish.

When I built my last two rods I had made an electric rod turner out of an old alarm clock. It works perfect.

I coated the wraps with the epoxy and let it dry on the rotator overnight.

I did make a couple of improvements while rebuilding this rod. The Cork Handle is made from the highest grade of cork I could find. The titanium/coralwood reel seat is from American Tackle and is quite unique. Anyway, I love how the rod turned out.