Rod evolution...

[nookslayer]

So on Friday I was out with Meskel and Plem on the Sandy. Plem brought along his Sage 8126... and I got corrupted by the spey rod.

I spoke not long ago about my introdcution to swinging and that I had outfitted my 10' 8wt. with a 420 grain and was digging it. Well, after finally learning a true spey cast (not just the snap c) and throwing the line damn near all the way acorss the river (with the 8126) a light went off. I quickly grabbed my 10' 8wt and tried to emulate the same cast and ZING! It worked quite nicely.

Getting back to the rod evolution... now I am stripping the single hand grip off os the 10' 8wt and adding a switch grip to it. 11" in the front with 4" in the rear so I cna get some torque on my cast. This rod did great but I just needed a little more to hold on to than a fighting but. Thanks to Meksel and his rod building skills to "tweek" my rod for it's purposed task. Looking forward to putting this guy together and testing it out.

[neuronick]

I just did this to my 10' 8wt. I used a 12" front grip and a 4" rear. I also extended the butt of the rod about 5" with another piece of graphite so that the top of the new front grip is in the same place on the rod as the old one was. I recommend this. This way I retained just as much rod above my top hand but still gained torque by separating my hands an extra 5". This also looks clean as the rod logos and lettering are not partially covered up by the new grip. It looks factory. The casting action of the rod is not affected because the top hand is always on the original rod blank (spey casting or overhead casting). There are just a few more inches of rod.

I cut up an old spinning rod to get a piece of blank I could stick into the butt of my rod and epoxy. So far so good - I've been spey casting my 400 grn single hand Skagit for a few weeks with this setup.

Good luck!

[nookslayer]

Good to know. I am throwing a single hand 420 skagit (airflow) and it has been good so far. I like the idea of adding graphite but I would be a littel concerned when fighting a fish and sliding into the added section and applying torque. Have you fought a pig on it yet? Let me know as I think that may be the way to go to retain the 10' on the rod.

[neuronick]

No hook-ups on it yet . The extension is a short, stout piece of graphite and seems strong. Hopefully I get to test it on a really BIG fish soon!

[nookslayer]

Just got my new grips today and the new reel seat for the swtich rod conversion. The grips are even better than I expected! Can't wait to get them on the rod and cahse some steel! As my brother would say, "the tug is the drug". BTW if any of you who build rods haven't checked out Shoff Tackle Co out of Puyallup I would strongly reccomend you do.

Here's to grease lining one of Andy's special flies!

[AndyK]

Originally Posted by nookslayer

Here's to grease lining one of Andy's special flies!

A surefire fish killer....