Building A Fly Rod

During this long winter I also completed another project, building a new fly rod. It has been 20 years since I’ve built a new fly rod. However, in these twenty years I have rebuilt two tip sections and one butt section. I’m thankful for lifetime warrantees.

My wife asked me what I wanted this year for my birthday and I responded that I would like a new fly rod blank for building a new fly rod. I started doing research on the latest and greatest fly rods on the market. The last two rods I built and fished with these past twenty years were Sage rods (5wt 9 1/2 ft RPL and a 4wt 9 ft LL) which I really liked so I started with that brand. Sage Z-axis rods seem to have the best reviews and are well liked by everyone, including the guides at the fly shops. Doing some price comparisons I found a seller on eBay (Angler’s Habitat) that offered the same price for the blank as everywhere else but also included all other components for building the rod for free. I went with this – Happy Birthday!

One thing I have noticed with the newer rods/blanks is that they are quite a bit lighter. Another thing is that 4 piece rods are a lot more common. This is due to the fact that ferrules have improved drastically from twenty years ago. Another improvement is that the manufacturer marks the spine location for you. This is to help you know how to align the guides so you don’t have to figure it out yourself.

The hardware components for building a fly rod include: Reel Seat, Cork Handle, Winding Check, Hook Keep, Stripping Guide, Snake Guides and the Tip Top Guide.

Other items that are needed are: Epoxy for gluing the reel seat and cork handle to the blank, Flexible Epoxy for the finish on the thread wraps, Rod Wrapping Thread and Masking Tape.