Anyone build their own fishing rods?

Been toying with the idea of building my own fishing poles for a while now, especially a fly rod. Seems like I can probably build my own, and buy a reel for what it costs to buy a commercially available unit or not much more. Never done it, I don't know anyone that does it. Seems like it should be fairly easy, though time consuming. Most of the motorized tools seem like they should be easy enough to cobble together or cheap enough to buy.

So any advice?

Any tips for sources?

Mistakes to avoid?

Thanks in advance!

My friend has rods and reels that cost way more than challenge cars. Like maybe several challenge cars. Each. I gotta think that there's a reason for that. Now, if you just want a stick and some string, that seems easy enough.

My grandfather built some fresh water rods that I still have. His were okay but I think it was another hobby of his. Good rods but not great.

My father built some salt water poles. It isn't overly difficult but time consuming. He didn't have an motorized equipment just me and my brother turning the pole as he wrapped the guides. The only thing I really know about making rods is that kids generally don't spin the rod at the right speed.

Yes, I made a fresh water rod in a class I took a couple of years ago. Time consuming and it is not cheap if you want a high quality rod. But, just like cars, you get out what you put into it an far as quality. And, all that personal satisfaction. You can make all of the major tools you will need and buy the smaller stuff.

My thought is this... I can spend 3-400 for a "high quality" St. Croix or??? Or I can spend half that and end up with a rod I built myself, and has all the stuff I want on it. Microguides, minimal epoxy, therefor minimal weight. I fish mostly inshore with light/ultra light tackle.

My goto rod is a Penn Battle medium light with a 3000 series Battle spinning reel spooled with 15lb braid. I've landed everything from Bluegill to 4' Bull sharks with it(the shark took 30min from the shore but I won!). My other rod I usually grab is a wally world 25$ special I bought for my niece(who apparently doesn't like fishing) that came spooled with 3 or 5lb mono that I've spooled with 10lb Fins wind braid that use to throw unweighted jerk baits and spoons.

As I said, I've been playing with the idea, big issue is not being able to find an off the shelf casting rod for my bait caster. It wouldn't happen till after the upcoming move, and I would obviously start with a cheap blank and not go whole hog till I figured some stuff out, but I thought I would ask the collective.

I fish light/ultralight from a kayak for bass, northern and an occasional walleye. We used St. Croix blanks w/most of the class making walleye rods. I made a longer light weight for more casting distance. Really happy with the result. The equipment we used was built by the instructor from simple materials and he used small motors from old micro waves to rotate the rods while applying and drying the epoxy. Good luck and have fun.

I am pretty sure that if I started building rods, I would stop fishing in much the same way that I have stopped driving classic cars since I started building them.

Outasite, Thanks! I hadn't thought of digging through old microwaves for the turn table motors. That sounds perfect!

Nohome, it's an addiction that I don't think I will be able to shake, even if I am building my own gear. Last time I was out, I was so focused on presenting/working the lure properly my phone went off and I literally jumped like someone poked me.

I bought all the equipment (power wrapper, dryer, etc) just before entering a new stage in my life which I call "I have too many hobbies...it's time to simplify". Then I got a couple of custom rods as a wedding gift. Now I have way more rods than I need and I don't know that I want to make more. It does seem like a cool hobby though.

Anyone want the rod building equipment? I'm located in Tampa.

LOL, shoot me a PM with what you want for em, They can stay in a box till we finish the move. Kind of jealous that you've got a Mudhole store within an hour or so of you.

I picked up Tom Kirkman's book about rod building, but I've not tried it, yet. It doesn't seem hard, just time consuming as others have said, and there is some skill involved in wrapping the rod.

You can probably save money building a high end rod, but anything up to about $50 is probably just going to be better off buying at the store. Most of the things I'd have considered building 10 years ago (7 foot ultralight rods) are readily available off of the shelf now.

The Mudhole is going to be your friend. They offer classes and also have instructional DVDs.

If you get really serious about it, check out the ICRBE: http://www.icrbe.com/ It isn't far from my house (about 90 minutes) but I think I'll just get intimidated if I show up there.

Mudhole shipping rates kill the deal for me. I had a bunch of lure making stuff in my cart from them, only about 30$ worth, but they wanted 16$ to ship it. For spoons, a few jig heads, swivels, and rings I didn't see how it could be so damn much, considering A. I wasn't in a hurry, and b. it was only going 2hrs up the road.

I was watching "How its Made" I think or one of the similar programs on the discovery chanel and they did a thing on making fly rods. It was fascinating that they took bamboo and split them length wise and then got 5-6 pieces each about 1/4" wide at the bottom that tapered up to almost 0 at the top. They then glued them together and wrapped them with thread to make the rod. It was interesting to see htem straiten the rod once it was tied together but befor it was dry. These were many thousand doller rods but it looked like something that you could do at home with enough space and pashence.

I just got a new rod and real this summer. t was my birthday and I realized that my rod and reals were going on 25 years old. Spent a bit more than I care to admit but the combination of a rod with a really good light action that I can get a good snap in when casting and a real that has a really good open bail means I was casting 20 or 30 feet further with the same weigh. And accuracy increased as well. I primarily fish for large and small mouth bass up at the lake in the summer. I use light action tackle with 6lb test. Makes catching 2-3 lb bass is a whole lot more of a challenge.

I seem to remember shipping being cheaper than that at Mudhole, I'll have to take another look.