Tips for Building Fishing Rods

The Right Rod for Your Fishing

Determine the type of fishing for which your rod will be used. The type of water you will be fishing, size and type of fish and type of tackle you will use will be your major considerations. Take into account your preference for light or heavy tackle fishing.

Select the Components

The fun part of building a custom rod is picking out all the individual components to suit your tastes. The most important component of all is the rod blank. Choose a rod blank with a length, weight and action that is well suited for all of the considerations discussed in Section 1. Choose the blank color, thread wrap color and reel seat style based on aesthetics. Select the guides and grip based on performance criteria just as you did the rod blank.

Putting it Together

This is the portion of the process that is usually most intimidating to new rod builders, but it is not that difficult. In short, you will be inserting the rod blank into the handle, adding a reel seat, wrapping the line guides on to the blank with thread and glue, and drying the whole thing by turning the rod slowly for a few hours. Now of course there are tips and techniques that you will learn as you gain experience, but the process itself is straightforward. Consider buying a rod making book or video and you will be armed with all the additional instructional material you need to be happily fishing your own custom rod in no time.