How to make a rod tube

I believe you can figure it out from here.

A lovely little thing!

But not mine.

He is going to fish with a bamboo rod of his own making this season

A friend of mine, the engineer, has been busy. Actually, he has not been all that busy as all this began over a year ago, but he has made a lot of work.



Sure he still has a lot of work to do, but I'd state it as a fact, that he is going to fish with his brand new 7'2" 4 weight Driggs River when the greatest evening hatch of the summer arrives.



And, I'm not going to fish with my own made cane rod. Not this summer. (My progress is detailed on the last picture.)

Social rod maker

What I didn’t know was that the hobby of making bamboo fly rods is such a social activity. Much of the work is done alone, but a lot more time is spent talking with fellow rod makers, 3-years-old daughter who wants a pink fly rod, 5-year-old son who wants a rod longer than his dad has, workmates, friends, and, well, just about everybody willing to listen. At some point a sister-in-law’s husband told me about a guy that only ever speaks about cars. I got the point.



I believe that most of bamboo rod makers are engineers. Books, articles and internet sites about bamboo fly rod making deal at least as much about construction of required tools and machinery, as they deal with the actual process of bamboo crafting. My task is to prove to the world that a humanist can craft a bamboo fly rod. The small print is that this particular humanist has partnered with an engineer to build bamboo fly rods.



Tools and machinery is one of the reasons this hobby is so social. If you don’t have all the tools, and believe me – you don’t, you can either construct (engineering degree doesn’t hurt), buy (costs about ten times as much as the materials for a bamboo fly rod), or you can borrow them. I prefer the last, so it takes a bit mingling with the right people to make the rod.

With this ring, I thee wed...

Some time ago, a precious little Orvis Superfine fly rod was given to me.

Now, she has a companion for life (or at least for the 24-and-half years what is left of the warranty). Say hi to my new Orvis CFO III reel!



They were made for each other.

Small streams (I am in love)

Saturday morning I decided to take a look at some small streams no more than an hour drive from my home. Small streams are true treasures, best of them usually hidden and hard to find.

A road less travelled - From Small Streams

I found the stream.

From Small Streams

And finally had time for my precious little girl.

From Small Streams

She is even more amazing than I thought. She casts like an angel, and none of the fishes - ranging from 35 cm to 42 cm or about 14" to 16.5" - were match to her.

From Small Streams

New fishing season is beginning.

From Small Streams

I am in love, and alive again.

New Family Member!

It's a Girl!

From Fly Rod

She is 7'9", 2 7/8 oz. For a 5 weight, she is small and light--but strong!

Mom is doing great and daddy is really proud!

From Fly Rod

This is my new Orvis Superfine Fly Rod. It's a prize for winning the Finnish Trout Conservation Competition organized by The Orvis Co Finland and Finnish Fly Fishing Forum Perhokalastajat.net.

Earlier posts:
- 4 Pieces of Joy
- On top of the world!

From Fly Rod

Rod Building - Part 7: Package opened

Yesterday my rod building project took a giant leap forward as the package arrived.

It's a Temple Fork Outfitters 9' #7 Professional Blank + Kit - From Fly Rod

I’ll consult an expert tonight and I’ll also have to think how to pimp my rod! (Does that sound weird to you as well?)

4 Pieces of Joy

Life is a series of decisions.

Some of them easy:

Do I ask her to marry me?

And some are hard:

Would you like to have a 7’9” 5-weight or do you prefer a 7’6” 3-weight?

After the contest results I am facing hard decision.

It is a personal choice, but if you have any suggestions or comments, please speak now or forever hold your peace.

EDIT
More specific:
Superfine Trout Bum 795-4 Full Flex 4.0 or Superfine Trout Bum 763-4 Full Flex 2.5

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!








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

No Comment

Steve Parton: Graphite Rods - the true costs

Custom fly rod

A Custom fly rod should look something like this:

Copyright (c) Antti Kymäläinen. Used with permission.

Dan Craft FT #4 9’ 4-pc by Antti Kymäläinen.

Check out his other rods as well...

Rod Building - Part 6: The Decision

I have ordered a Temple Fork Outfitters Professional Blank and Component Kit. My final choice was a 7 weight 9 foot rod, which is a compromise: I would had preferred a 10 foot blank, but the ones that I could find at this rather low price range (I don’t want to spoil anything expensive) were not reviewed anywhere.

The TFO Professional Reviews were easy to find and they were also rather positive. Other than that, it is a four piece blank which makes it rather transportable and it does have the no-fault warranty that might become useful. I also got a pretty good deal with local dealer on this one.

This rod building project of mine has two goals. First is to find out can a person who’s thumb is located in middle of the palm (it’s a Finnish expression, I don’t know is it used elsewhere) build a fly rod. The second goal is, if the first one succeeds, to have another useful fly rod.

The uses that I have thought so far are: streamer fishing for big trout, Atlantic-salmon dry fly fishing, and perhaps some still water fly fishing. I use a 9’ 5 weight rod almost all the time, but it is not at its best with big streamers.

Shooting head testing continues

It's time to continue shooting head testing. I have made few Shooting heads for my 5 weight rod. There is a short floating line (about 7 meters or 23 feet of DT8F). It is good and easy to cast, but it is bit shorter than I like. So I have cheap DT7F that I try next. I also have fast sinking head made of old WF8 sink tip line and sinking one made of DT6S.

The question is: why to do this with relatively light 5 weight rod?
My answer: Why not? With DT7 head, I can cast streamers really well and my outfit is still light.

Have you made custom shooting heads?

From Shooting Heads

Reunited and ready

I now have my old 9' 5 weight 4 piece rod back. Actually it is now 5 piece rod, but not in a bad sense - I just have one extra piece. One might speculate that it is 1/4 chance that I have just right spare piece ready if rod breaks again, but I think that it is more like 1 out of 400.000 that just the right piece breaks.

Last weekend I failed to land three good rainbows in last 15 minutes of fishing session. It must have been because I had the wrong rod...

Patience

It has been a while, but now my rod has been shipped back. (Edit: Currently some nice doggy is sniffing my rod at Finnish Customs.) This experience has raised me to a new level… But my cell phone felled to the floor last night and I found out that buttons [5], [7], [9], [0] and [Menu/OK] aren’t working any more. (Ahem.)

Rod Building - Part 4

I have decided to build a 7 weight ten footer. That would be a good choice for stillwaters and for bigger trout in rivers Kuusinki, Kitka and Oulanka. Picture below is from upper Kitkajoki.



Stillwater fly fishing is something that is relatively new to me. With 7 weight rod I should be able to use fast sinking lines and rigs of multiple flies. I think that I will subscribe Trout and Salmon or some other UK fly fishing magazine. They seem to know a lot of stillwater fishing in UK. I will also need to tie new sets of flies - mainly for stocked rainbow trout but also something for pike.

Keywords: Rod building, Stillwater

Rod Building - Part 3

I have spent too much time thinking and planning my rod building project. I should be doing it at autumn when the rivers close.

I have general idea how fly rod is build - or, in fact, assembled.

But what kind of rod should I build? I do 98 % of my fishing with 5 weight rod, so I have different length 5 weight rods and I do not want to build another like those. Currently I have to options. Either 3 weight 9'6" blank with "slow parabolic" action and 7 weight 10' blank with "medium fast" action.

These blanks are designed for totally different kinds of fly fishing. The light one would be lovely for nymphing and dry fly fishing. The heavier one should do well in still waters and big trout streams and when the water runs high.

Testing rods and lines

Now when my favourite fly rod is broken I have tried out my other rods with different lines. To my surprise some strange combinations work to some extent at least.

Maybe the biggest surprise is my old 8 weight rod. This 8'6" rod casts 7 weight DT line very well, but this is natural as you might even call it 7/8 weight rod. However I was able to cast some 20-23 meter casts with this rod using 5 weight Rio WindCutter line. It didn't shoot that well but I was able to keep most of the line in the air before final forward cast. It did require lot of double hauling thou.

There is first time for everything

I broke my fly rod yesterday.

I've been fly fishing for about two decades now, but this was the very first time that my fly rod broke. It was a strange moment: I was at the shore of local lake with my son. He was playing in the beach while I was practicing my fly casting. I even put the camera on recording an AVI-clip of my fly casting, so that I could improve my casting skills or at least to see what goes wrong.

Now on that AVI-clip, there is a moment when fly casting suddenly stops. I stand still for a second as I realise what just happened. I wasn't cursing or anything. The worst finally happened - and it happened at the peak of my this years' fly fishing season.

My rod is one of those "Made in USA" with life-time warranty, so the broken part will be replaced. I don't worry about that. I have other rods - so even my fishing isn't compromised while broken parts travel to the USA and replacements are sent back.

But it was a strange moment when I realised what had happened...













Keywords: Life, Casting