Monday, January 15, 2007

The making of a fly rod

Administrating an active fly fishing forum can be a load of work but now it has been proved that it is possible to get something in return.

Masi Hast has been administrating Finnish perhokalastajat.net site and forum for several years and finally one forum member had an idea that Masi should be rewarded somehow. He started a new thread called “A rod for Masi”.

To make a fly rod, you need time, money, and a rod maker. Many members of this forum (current member count of this forum is 3121) made a small donations. Mikko Stenberg was the one who did the work.

Here are some entries from Mikko’s Resume: FQSA Master Tyer, Two times FQSA World Champion and two time FQSA Silver Medalist, Irish Open 2006 Champion, Flymeister 2001 ”Best in Show”, Fly Fishing & Fly Tying Magazine Year 2006 Champion in Fly Tying, Second place in Fly Anglers Online competition, Two times third place in Mustad Fly Tying Competition, Two third places in Guideline Open 2005 Tying Competition, and Third place in Finnish National Fly Tying Competition 2005 (Salmon Fly series).

And naturally he can fish: Three times Champion in Finnish National Fly Fishing Team Championships.

But can Mikko build a fly rod? You can decide after viewing these images of Masi’s new Winston!


Image copyright (c) Masi Hast. Used with permission.

Image copyright (c) Masi Hast. Used with permission.

Image copyright (c) Masi Hast. Used with permission.

All images above Copyright (c) Masi Hast. Used with permission.

4 comments:

The Mad Fishicist said...

i'm getting visions of starting my own message board and working really hard so the members will make me a BIIx. i can dream.

opax said...

It's a long shot. :-)

Jay said...

Hmm.. not sure I like the 'whistles & bells' on this rod. I prefer the 'less is more' approach...

The Winston BIIx is a superb rod by the way.

opax said...

'Less is more' is a good approach. But this is a special rod and that gives justification to make it a fancy one.