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Blanks and Components Explained - 3 of 3
 by Don Allard
The last part of this series is going to be my favorite part to write. It also just so happens that I will get to shamelessly plug for custom-built rods!
Now that the blank is finished it is ready to be built into a finished rod. Depending upon what the rod will be used for, the factory will set up the rod components and guides. (And of course depending on each individual's own likes, dislikes, and casting flaws and attributes, I will set up components and guides accordingly.)
Lets start at the bottom and work our way up to the top. First comes the reel seat. A seat should of course be aesthetically pleasing to each individual. This sounds shallow, but your fishing rod is your best companion on the river (or pond, or lake, etc.) and it is my feeling the rod should look (and perform) to each persons specs. Aside from looks the reel seat must also meet the quality level that is desired on each rod. Of course the better quality of the seat, the longer it will perform its task, which of course is to FIRMLY hold the reel at a direct angle to the guides on the rod. Notice I wrote firmly in capitol letters. A good quality reel seat has been designed to hold the reel without loosening or allowing the reel to turn sideways from the guides. And the reel seat should be matched up to your favorite reel. Some reel seats just do not work well with a person’s favorite brand of reel.
Another quality I prefer in a reel seat involves saltwater seats. I like to have my saltwater seats made up with a retractable or removable fighting butt. I tend to use different size fighting butts in different situations, and at times the fighting butt gets in my way and I like the option of being able to remove it when needed.
The actual weight of the reel seat can affect the overall rod feel too. It is my preference to get the reel that is to be used on the rod, and set the balance point of that rod with the reel on the rod. There are so many different reels on the market and each model’s weight can vary greatly. With this in mind each rod should be balanced so that it will set almost perfectly in the person’s hand. This is something that most people don’t seem to care about, and I get a lot of people that don’t know what reel they want to use, or use different reels on the same rod. If the rod is balanced out right it will make an incredible difference in how tired your arm is after a full day on the river. So with the reel mounted a seat that is heavier in actual weight, or lighter in actual weight can help to balance out the rod (a slight amount of lead weight at the end of the seat will make up the difference.)
The handle of the rod is quite an obvious component that will affect overall comfort and performance.
There is nothing worse than trying to adjust to a handle that doesn’t feel right. Of course most saltwater rods have a full wells, and the lighter trout rods usually have reverse half wells, or ultra fine grips.
My saltwater and trout rods have the same size (and usually shape) grips. If you have a grip that is comfortable to you it should be utilized in all your rods from lightest trout to the heaviest saltwater. There’s no need to be uncomfortable. Once you hand gets tired from holding a grip that doesn’t fit your casting starts to suffer. There are also a few grip styles (one known as maniform) that will help those with arthritis hold onto their fly rods when casting.
And lastly and quite importantly are the guides. The major parts of a guide set up are guide choice, and guide spacing, and number of guides. I won’t go into details on this but there are many different guide styles available for fly rods. A quick overview should help out.
There are single foot ceramic fly guides that work very well on heavier freshwater and heavy saltwater fly rods. Some of these guides are 100% corrosion proof and the ceramic rings offer a super smooth surface like no other. They look like miniature spinning rod guides. The downfall of these guides are that they are a little heavier than that of a standard fly guide, yet they only get a wrap on one side instead of the traditional fly rod snake guides which have two feet and need epoxy finish on each foot. With the ceramic ring the fly line has virtually no friction and will shoot very easily.
The standard in performance guides is the wire frame single foot guides. These are available plated with different metals offering different performance. From standard Hard Chrome to a harder Titanium Carbide, or Titanium Nitrate plating. These guide offer a lighter overall finished rod with less epoxy finishes on the blank.
There are the traditional snake guides widely used by factory rods. These guides perform moderately well with the same plating available as the single foot wire guides above. The downfall of the regular snake guides are that they are heavier in actual weight than single foot wire guides, and the wrap at each end plus the epoxy coating at each end of the guide makes the total weight of the rod go up.
There are some innovative snake guides hitting the market now. The light wire guides offer traditional looks with very little extra weight since they are made from a lighter gauge wire weighing about half of a regular snake guide.
One company makes a titanium alloy snake guide that will actually collapse and return to its regular shape when pushed on. These guides flex along with the blank and (TAKE NOTE OF THIS WINTER FISHER PEOPLE) it’s incredibly easy to de-ice these guides. I have a winter use rod with these guides. I just push on the guide to pop off the ice and they spring right back up.
After the guide models are chosen the guide spacing and guide number should be chosen. On any given fly rod length and action the proper amount of guides needs to be used. If too few guides are used, the finished rod will run the risk of having weak points, where when flexed it will have too great a degree of stress and run the possibility of failure. If you string up the fly rod and pull on the fly line the line should follow the bend of the blank at least relatively well. If there are any points where the fly line looks like a ”bow and arrow” then the blank is going to be stressed at that point and the guide spacing should be deemed incorrect. (There are a few exceptions on specialty rods made up for specific purposes.)
Just as having too few guides can be detrimental to a fly rod's durability, having too many guides can effect a rod's performance. Again, there are exceptions. For a beginner adding more guides than needed on a fly rod helps a beginner in achieving line control, and bogs down the rods efficiency which helps a beginner cast the rod better.
I need to make something clear. I hear from many hobbyist (and professional) rod builders that adding or deleting guides can affect a rod's action. An example is if a customer has a fast action rod but cannot get it to work just right for them that adding a few guides with soften the action. This is a false statement. Much has been written on this subject and it is proven that an action cannot be changed. Efficiency is what changes.
As an example I will use the following paraphrase. I am quite sure this analogy was used by Gary Loomis in describing how using different components makes a rod more or less efficient, but does not change the action. Gary stated that if you take a diving board made of fiberglass. The ”action” is made up in the construction of the diving board. You bounce on it and it rebounds you to propel you into the air. Now take that same board and hang a 50lb. Lead weight at the end of it. That same diving board is now less efficient. You will not get the same amount of ”lift” when jumping on the board. However the diving boards action has not changed. It’s still the same diving board in the same action just less efficient from the extra weight hanging off the end.
This also holds true for a fly rod. The lighter guides (and the least amount that can be used while still retaining durability) will make for a rod blank that is more efficient and can do its intended job easier.
As more weight is added (and this is doubly important near the tip section) the rod has to work more to do its intended job!
The final touch to finish the rod would be placing the first few guides nearest the caster’s hand in the proper location. The stripping guide(s) play a part in funneling the line into the rest of the rod, and the placement should differ from person to person. A person with a shorter length arm is going to need the first stripping guide closer to the handle for optimum casting efficiency than a person with a longer arm. Also for a fly rod that has been engineered primarily for distance casting the first stripping guide should be set up as far up from the handle as possible without a condition of ”line slap” in which the line hits the blank ahead of or behind the stripper guide.
I have one more side note relating to guides. Many other rod builders, including myself, have for years used oversized guides in an effort to increase casting efficiency. It was the general consensus that a larger sized guide would allow the line to flow easier with less friction. This is true to a certain extent. However the latest findings in the rod building industry points towards keeping the guide weight as low as possible. This seems to be the single most important factor in overall rod efficiency. If weight is the main issue in performance then of course oversized guides would weigh more than smaller guides. From that my two cents on the issue of guide size would be this, I would use the smallest (and lightest) possible guides that allows the fly line to pass through easily. I know this sounds a little vague, but it depends on if a weight forward, double taper, saltwater taper, or a line with loop to loop connectors (such as certain shooting heads) are used. And of course it depends on the actual line weight. It is up to the person building the rod (or buying the rod) to use their best judgment to find a guide set that is light enough, yet large enough in diameter to allow the fly line to pass through.
In closing I have now gone over, (hopefully), most of the insides and outsides of fly rod construction. Each person tends to have a different casting style and that should be taken into consideration when buying a rod off the shelf (or having a rod built for you). Don’t feel ashamed if you pick up the latest and fastest action rod off the shelf and you can’t seem to get the hang of how to cast it. These types of rods take a real short casting stroke, and excellent judgment of timing. They are also primarily useful at longer distances (although some do have the right taper cut into them so that they do load alright at shorter distances).
And on the other hand for those out there that are accustomed to the fast action rods, it seems hard to believe that any real use can be had from a softer more medium flexing rod. These tapers and materials are made up to let the caster get away with some ”slop” in their cast and still load up well. Of course after a certain amount of distance they just seem to give up. The fact that the rod is quite loaded at a longer distance, and that it just has no more power in it to throw forward all that line is normal. The very construction of a moderate action rod is why it casts how it does. A lot of us fall in between somewhere. A caster we need to find out just what works for us and why. And then we should seek out the action of rod that closely follows what we are accustomed to. From there if you are building your own rod or having one built for you, the efficiency can be increased slightly, (or in some cases decreased slightly), to find that perfect fly rod action for you.
Take care and hopefully we’ll meet on the river!
This is the third and final part of a three part series on Fly Rods by Don Allard of Allard's Custom Fly Rods.
Don can be reached at FlyFishng2@aol.com
Click Here To view Part I of this article
Click Here To view Part II of this article
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