elduderino

did you break the rod or just the guide?

Micro guides are nothing new. They've been around for ever on ultralight rods as well as some technique specific setups used in Europe and Asia. In the last 15 years or so, rods (bass rods more specifically) have undergone a marketing shift towards being as light as possible. It used to be that you had to keep paying more and more $$$ to shave off each gram of weight - using higher modulus graphite, titaninium guides etc... well - micros get you that weight savings and they 1/10th price of a set of titanium guides. As for why you don't see "veterans" embracing this, well - i've seen plenty of respected builders using them as well as read multiple articles about the pros/cons written by them. I think any of them will tell you that in any situation, use the smallest possible guide that will effectively and efficiently do the applicable task. In cases for bass fishing, in nearly every situation - a size 6 (standard single foot size) is more than sufficient, so why not a 3 or 4? I think its not so much the builders are not embracing them, but the buyers of custom rods might have some trepidations about spending big bucks on something that is not the industry norm - cuz lets be honest - if you came to me and said "I want X, Y and Z so its as light as possible" and i told you "X, Y, Z will cost you 350 bucks... i can do "A, B, C" and make it lighter for 200 though." You'd probably be skeptical.

best part about the batson's is the price. swampland has them for something like 80c a guide. After using them i see no reason to pay the extra money for an alocnite - with a guide as small as 3 - any weight savings between the two materials is beyond the threshold of human sensitivity. here is a breakdown of the batson single foots for reference... they are not sized exactly the same as fujis (ie a 3mm batson is not the same as a 3mm fuji). There's also a very easy way to wrap these little guys outlined here: http://rodbuilding.org/read.php?2,300464 -justin

i just did a bunch of spinning and casting rods with the batson micros, really like then. I'm typically an alconite user, so this was a deviation from the norm. I used all ALPs guides to stay concistent and turned out some very lightweight rods. The one i've been using for personal use - i have been very happy with the performance. Only thing i will say is - if you fish any sort of rigs that you would tie a leader (like using a uni-uni knot) you should step up to a size 4 or 5 guide, the size 3s do not pass knots very well.

the biggest fish are the also the biggest spawners - so still a great way to keep the population down. i have no love for carp, they have destroyed several lakes i grew up fishing. shoot every last one of them.

i fish mostly 4" or 2.5" drop shot tubes. I've switched over to Xtreme bass tackle tubes... best colors around for the great lakes. i just got a bunch of these bad-boys in 2.5, 4" and 5" - new perch color'd triple laminate.

you can build a very nice rod for under 100$. you will have some upfront costs with epoxy, thread and finish - but these will last for many rods to come.

tungsten + sweetbeaver + pitchin = basses.

long time ago in a land far far away.... (ontario) i used to catch a lot of smallies using a strata spoon - which is basically just a heavy, hammered silver jigging spoon made by BPS. We would get them trolling for walleye - i would just let it sink to bottom and hop it up a foot or two and let it fall. i plan on using a silver buddy a lot this season early... our season in michigan opens last sat in april.. so the prime "blade bait" fishing period is pretty short.

check you out some bandit crankbaits in chartruese rootbeer also try a dark colored jig w/ craw trailer. Brown, black, blue etc... put some stink juice on it too 8-)

Thanks. I have an aztek that i can't get ANYTHING to go through... thinned or not... even with all new tips. Time for new airbrush i think.

those look great! fish catchers for sure. what kind of airbrush and paints are you using?

yessir - just slid it right down in front of the reel seat threads after i got the foregrip off. Take some sand paper and sand down the lip off finish where it was originally and after wrapping it you can hardly tell its where new and old finish meet up.

i've read that using automotive style spray paints and clear coats is the best way to go because they have more plasticizers in them that makes them less brittle and not as prone to cracking... i would assume the automotive clear coat would work also.

yes - i have a cheapie motorized dryer like what you can find on ebay... if you are the tinkering type, i'm told you can make one for under 10$ using a rotisserie motor like these: i use a 6rpm though... bought it off a guy locally for 15$

i have a lab and took him a few times as a pup to get used to the boat (he's a duck hunting dawg)... he's pretty good but.. as is the case with black dogs.. he gets hot in the sun and just randomly jumps in. If you've ever tried to hoist and 96lb lab into a bass boat.. you'll understand why he only goes out duck hunting with me now ;D Once as a pup he tried to eat the trebles of my buddies popper.... still can't believe he didn't get hooked. He's an awesome dog though and my best bud

we are at 98" of snow for the year... already set records for total snowfall and most snowfall in a month for Jan and Feb... Ice out appears to be at least April... my first salmon tourney on lake michigan is on April 5... might be breaking shelf ice to get out of the harbor!!! i need to move to texas or something..... >

there's nothing on this earth i would choose over 1 more chance to wet a line with my gramps. He passed away Oct 6, 2007 - on my last bass tourney of the year. He was an extraordinary and selfless man and i'm blessed everyday from having known him. I can't help but feel like he's with me all the time now and I look forward to fishing with him this upcoming season. 8-)

almost forgot - here's a shot of the replacement butts - the one on the right has fender washers on it as balance weight.

Gentlemen - Thanks for the kind words! Removing cork is pretty easy and done simply with a razor blade and some pliers. Once the cork is off, i use the razor to scrape off the large clumps of glue and then sand the blank as smooth as possible. To finish things off i add a thread wrap or pigmented epoxy finish over the sanded blank. To top it off i use a very basic marbling technique in the final coat of finish. This article explains how to work the cork (same concept applies to the foregrip): http://www.georgescustomrods.com/split_your_grip.htm The only thing i do different is i don't remove the cork at the base of the rod so there is no need to turn a new butt. There is a good article on the marbling here: http://www.rod-crafting.com/articles/marbling-help.html here's a closeup of the crankin stick

my boats been put away since October.... but i duck hunt in the fall so its OK. Caught my last bass through the ice on Jan 1st... fished Toho on vacation for a day and got skunked... since then i've built 1 rod, started 4 others and ripped the foregrips off all my bass pro rods along with some other mods. Also... ran my credit card up nice and high buying all those "secret baits" i'm gonna need for spring. Sad thing is with michigan's bass season it will still be late April before i get to go bass fishing.

i didn't see he was from MI also-- do yourself a favor and get a drop-shot rod!! There's plenty to choose from, i like the St. Croix Avid 7' ML/Fast (SC3 blank) for an all purpose DS rod) where at in MI?

suffering from a little cabin fever up here in the great white north... i finally got enough posts to post pictures, so i figured i'd post up a couple BPS rods i recently customized: (L-R)7'6" Bionic blade, 7' Crankin Stick, 6' Bionic Blade spinning i'm working on replacing the BPS screw in butts on the blades.. you know that annoying screw that comes undone and falls into the lake 3 days after you buy the thing? Think i've got a pretty good system going, we'll see when the epoxy dries. Cheers -Justin

for local tournies... it almost always seems (to me anyway) that there are 4 or 5 techniques (less if i'm on fish) that i'm going to use... all season maybe. Identify your goto methods and setup a rod for each, then go back and start doubling up so you can have 2 rigs of the same bait w/ different colors..... It looks like you have a nice set of versatile rods, find out what you like them best for and then start adding the rigs you need to apply different techniques.

i've been using pline copolymer for about 5 years and the stuff is great... its not really much more than a spool stren or trilene, great visibilty above the water, floro-coated under water... soft, limp, low memory, even has a little stretch to it. if you want to see the diff between mono and a copolymer, snag into a log with some 8lb Gamma...