As many of you know, my main interest in rods tends to be the bamboo rods I make. However, I have had a soft spot for fiberglass rods based on inheriting several of my grandpa’s rods over 15 years ago. I actually do a fair number of fiberglass rods.
That leads me to do “projects” for fun. Over a cold spell, I took one of these little eight piece 6’6” rods and spent some time with it.
The project work included stripping off all of the hardware, the paint on the blank, trimming all sections to be equal in length and then tweaking the ferrules to fit better. I used hardware that I had laying around, such as a short grip from another project in the distant past (that may get a bit more tweaking), some light wire snakes, etc. As you can see, the rod lost about 22% of its body mass. While I am not sure I would ever consider this a high performance taper, it is now more responsive and is crisper in its action since it has less mass to overcome in its upper sections. The change from seven extra heavy to eight light wire guides also helps. If I do this again, (I actually have another one laying around) I might even go to nine guides. This rod will live in a sling back on hikes with my daughter in NM and CO brook trout and cutthroat country. I like it as a 2wt.
Here is the original rod in all its glory.
Here it is at its original weigh in.
Here it is after a facelift.
Moreover, its final weigh in.