6 weight micro spey build

[GungasUncle]

Taking a page out of Ed Ward & company's latest ventures, I'm building up a micro spey rod on a 9' 6 weight blank I've had laying about for a couple years.

I got the handles and reel seat mocked up - nothing is glued up yet, I turned up the handles yesterday, and turned the reel seat this afternoon. The reel seat is composite cork - the hardware came off of an old reel seat I saved from a broken rod. I wanted to reuse the entire seat - but that wasn't going to work. The hardware came off the old seat pretty easily. I've still got the wood insert that I can use on a smaller diameter rod if I get some new hardware for it.

The foreward grip is 9 inches, the lower grip 3, for now. I'll be adding a small wooden ball or something to complete the end of the lower grip, like I did on my ultralight spey rod - as the end of the blank is still open right now.





I need to get some guides for it, and some epoxy to actually glue on the components. I've still got flex coat for wrapping everything up.

 

[OnTheDrop]

Bad ass!

 

[TimberTodd]

That looks like a fun rod to toss. Post how it casts once you have it done. Any particular system you have in mind for its maiden voyage?

 

[GungasUncle]

That looks like a fun rod to toss. Post how it casts once you have it done. Any particular system you have in mind for its maiden voyage?

Depends when I actually get it done. Once I get a set of guides for it, and the thread color I want, it won't take long to finish up, but procrastination runs deep. I've had this particular blank sitting on a shelf for 2 years without doing anything with it.

Tualatin smallmouth are on the list of things to hunt with it for sure, SRC's on the wilson are also a good possibility. Bass bugging on Hagg. A short 250-300 grain Skagit head should turn over a modestly tied, lightly weighted 3-4 inch fly pretty easily (thinking clouser minnow, sparsely tied muddlers, craft fur minnows etc)

There are some places on the tualatin where you *know* there are fish, but getting a fly into them has been a pain because the trees poke out over the water behind you if wading, the fish holding lies are mid stream or across the river 50 or 60 feet away, and a standard 4, 5, or 6 weight line just doesn't have the oomph to carry "meat" with a roll cast. There's a couple lies around Cook Park in Tigard on the Tualatin that, unless flooding has changed them since I was there last, that I've never been able to effectively fish with a flyrod while wading. I've always wound up using spinning or baitcasting setups to get lure in there. The fish typically aren't big enough to put much of a bend or fight into an 8 weight rod. So we'll see how the micro concept works.

 

[JonT]

Nice work. You should try Ed's OPST head on that thing.

 

[ChezJfrey]

Nice work. You should try Ed's OPST head on that thing.

Agreed, I like that OPST idea. This rod is intriguing. During summer steelhead, I use a similar approach with a single-hand and Wulff Ambush triangle taper, but the OP's switch-style rod and an OPST seems like it might be more versatile and easier fishing.

 

[GungasUncle]

My plan is either the OPST Commando or a Rio Skagit Max Short - I've got hands on experience with the later, wanting to try the former. Their video about bass fishing in Wisconsin with ultra short "micro spey" rods converted from single to double handers and the Commando heads pushed me over the edge to try this. Ward & companions fish converted rods down to 6'6" or so.

On the waters I fish that require such a short rod - two handed casts and shooting heads aren't necessary. I can fish a streamer of sufficient size on a 4 weight with a single hand line just fine. But on waters like the Tualatin - a longer rod isn't a hindrance, but there's little back cast room in a lot of places. It's great that the skagit master crew has developed these short heads for shorter, lighter rods - it's a lot of trial and error I don't have to do It opens up new waters to fish with an appropriate fly rod as well. I did some shooting head fishing with my single handers last year for bass and trout - a 200 grain line on my 5 weight glass was interesting. It struggled a bit though with larger flies I was trying to fish - but it let me know how much I could eek out of that light a setup. A stiffer graphite rod with a heavier head should jack a bigger fly more easily.

This is an outfit that should fish 5X tippets and dry flies as well as it does a size 2 or 4 streamer.

 

[CastingCall]

G U ever try a wind cutter fly line very heavy on the front-end and you can add on, them terminate with a floating leader. If you have trouble with short light gear? I discovered this set-up years ago. Tony

 

[GungasUncle]

G U ever try a wind cutter fly line very heavy on the front-end and you can add on, them terminate with a floating leader. If you have trouble with short light gear? I discovered this set-up years ago. Tony

Never had the desire to try a wind cutter. I have used the Rio Switch and Switch Chucker - similar concept, though they still don't have the raw power to jack a big fly out in the same way that a shooting head does. Integrated PVC or Polyurethane running lines also inhibit distance over a mono running line.

The concept behind the ultra short Skagit type shooting heads is tossing bigger than normal flies on lighter than normal rods - couple it with a compact rod and you get those benefits on smaller water where aerialized casts are impractical.

In the last year or so I've been transitioning most of my fishing away from aerialized casts in favor of roll casts of one sort or another - because the roll cast is simply a bit more versatile in where it can be used. Throw in spey techniques - single or double handed - and you really only need to put a fly in the air when fishing with dry flies, or when using a lob cast for a dredging rig when nymphing. It's still fun to air out a line and cast unweighted flies but they're about the least practical fishing casts on most of the waters I fish.

 

[Shaun Solomon]

Intredasting. ride:

I always did like the out-of-the-box mentality concerning gear and methods.

Keep us posted!

SS

 

[GungasUncle]

So I have guides wrapped up - the two butt sections are on the dryer right now. Tomorrow I'll do the two tip sections.

I am deeming this rod my "Fugly Stick" because well, I did some experiments and they didn't turn out as nice as I wanted. I used a different, new to me marine epoxy to bond rod to cork - and it squooshed out between some of the rings. I cleaned it up as best as I could - and the handles look fine, but the dark composite cork reel seat looks like ass, if I am honest. My attempts to sand it down left it not so round. Kind of pissed, but it's fishable, and it's a fishing tool not a work of art.

I also decided since my grip & reelseat look like ass, I would experiment in another way too - why not? So I used rayon floss for my trim wraps, in red, with wine colored primary wraps on the guides. I did a a cross style decorative wrap on the butt below the signature series, in wine, red, and gold. It looked okay till I varnished it (did that before I epoxied the guides) and well - it darkened up a LOT more than I thought it would and you can hardly see the wrap. So I have a bumpy butt section.

And so I have deemed it my Fugly Stick. It will put a hurtin' on the fish no doubt, and the poor fish will have hurt feelings because it got caught by such an ugly rod. Double whammy.

The thing that turned out the best was the signature section. Instead of my usual silver paint with wood stylus I said WTF, the rest of the rod is ugly, lets try one more new thing! I used a metallic sharpy - worried that maybe the epoxy would lift the ink. I tried different type of inks before on my first rods and they failed, hence why I've stuck with Testor's enamel on my last 4 or 5 builds. The metallic fine point sharpy kicked ass though - easy to write neatly with, AND the epoxy did NOT lift it. Hooray there's one decent looking thing about this rod now!

If this does fish I think I'm going to wind up building a newer, nicer looking rod on the same blank, if I can find another deal on it. The American Tackle Matrix blanks look pretty sharp - I love the emerald color. Next time around though - I'd stick with thread only, no floss, and NCP type thread (no color preserver needed, thread doesn't change colors with epoxy) and may go with premade grips next time to save time and energy. Also - not using the particular marine epoxy again! I'll stick to the epoxy I used before in all my earlier builds.