Custom Rod Question

[Bait O' Eggs]

For those that purchase custom rods, what do you look for in a custom rod? Most rods you can get made custom can be purchased over the counter, cant they?? Is it color of thread?? handle or reel seat?? eyes??? There must be something that makes people buy a custom rod, what is it??

[Lured In]

BOE: You are correct to a certain extent about the "rod" being the same. Actually the blank may be the same model. My uncle is a custom rod builder and it is amazing to see the differences in factory blanks alone. You could take a dozen of the same model blank and see that there are subtle differences in them. I am not talking about factory seconds, but production quality blanks. So assuming you get the best of the lot of blanks, a custom rod builder will actually build the rod around the blank and its charecteristics according to your fishing needs.

I am certainly no rod expert, but I do know that the custom rods I have fished with are way out of the league of mass produced rods. IMHO having a "pretty" rod is down on the list of "needs" but if I could afford to replace all of my rods with custom built rods, I would.

Not to take anything away from TH's rods, but you can check www.featherrods.com and they have some good info on what makes a custom rod truly custom. This includes blank selection, guide selection and placement, reel seats, handles and finishes.

[SailCat]

Hi, Roy-

My feeling is that the #1 difference is the alignment of the guides along the seam (spline) of the blank (or opposite, delending on rod type) which makes for a more accurate casting tool and prevents rod torque.

As for the reason people buy them, that varies as much as people. I've made presentation rods (no-holds-barred, best of the best, magnesium-frame titanium-nitride guides and all), an ultra-light baitcasting rod for a fellow who couldn't find one to buy and a sturgeon rod for a guy who wanted it to match his pickup truck.

Cheers,

~MT
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