Starting last winter I got my feet wet and entered the world of rod building. I started with a 6'6" lamiglas 3wt blank. I turned the cork myself at home with a cordless drill in a vice and really had a pleasant time of it in general. For my first rod, I thought it came out pretty decent.
But still, the winter was young and I was bored so in the mail came another Lamiglas blank, this time the 7' version of the 3wt. I made a set of green anodized slip rings to complete this build.
At this point I thought I was done but then a nice 6' 3wt bamboo blank just happened to fall into my lap and before I knew it may was here and now I had 3 great new rods to fish this season.
I spent the whole season fishing just these 3 rods. But the rod building itch had set in bad, and I was in for the long haul it seems. Besides….you can't have too many rods right? For this coming year I planned on building just one rod, a 7' 3wt Ijuin Yomogi.
This build featured THIC light wire guides and tiptop, a down locking curly maple reel seat, hand turned cork cigar grip, LYI silk and 6 coats of Man O War spar varnish to finish it off. Paired up with a vintage skeleton and rio gold. This will be my primary rod this season.
Think Spring….
