spoonplugger1

Rich Forhan was using a 1/8 " hole in the trigger of a Fuji casting seat 15+ years ago. It's also in his book from the early 90's. Powerhand Baitcasting was the title, lists the different techniques and the custom rods needed to do them. The developer of Revolver Rods, the first bass rods I am aware of that had split grips, spiral wraps, skeleton reel seats, and other innovations you now see used on rods today. He also is a lure designer.

Looks more like a custom job from Seaguide rod components.

S Hovnac has it right, I put tension on the tip with one of the baby bungee cords that way I don't add more heat than necessary to remove the tip, doesn't take much tension for the tip to pop off, can use a rubber band if you isolate the band from the hot tip with a piece of string or something. Tip will come off at around 150 degrees, 30 degree more is about all you have before tip failure gets to be a concern.

If your boat or storage area will allow I would go up at least 6 inches longer. If I was sitting or fishing from the bottom of the boat instead of a casting deck, I would get the longest comfortable rod for longer casts. RS makes a blank to 8 ft. in your series. Rod balance isn't a concern on rods fished with a lowered tip, lure drag negates the tip weight. I use a rear grip length of 8 - 9 inches max. Rod blank in front of the hand improves casting and fishability, everything behind the hand especially if solely for balance is only a graphite stick. The MH will probably be fine, similar power to the St Croix MHM cranking sticks.

Lots of rod companies have used that ferrule and blank color, nothing special, Loomis made a 2 piece SJ blank in 6 1/2 ft. don't remember a 7 footer. There was a 7 ft. Popping rod blank, no sticker would make me suspicious, could be a cheap IM6 Tiger eye blank, exact same color and ferrule.

Not many left, been a dying breed since their heyday in the 80's, early 90's.

A good MH graphite choice is the St. Croix 3C70MHM. Popping rod blank in 4 power will also give you a MH rod.

I'D change the tip and the next two guides to get a progression in height down to the tip, space the guides equally down the blank. Just for info Sabre designs were picked up by Penn than sold to Batson when Penn went offshore, so closest replacements are now there.

It doesn'the mean nothing important, rod blanks are a composite, another words, made from many different materials, they are allowed to highlight any part of that composite structure they like in advertising. HM64 could also mean just about anything, just like a shampoo or whatever commercial, they rely on your imagination to fill in the info, real or imagined. By law they could have one strand of HM64, whatever it is, in the blank and still be completely truthful and legal in the composite structure of a blank.

Yes, but be leary as many grips are already longer than many elite anglers like on factory rods. Balance is nice, but if the grip length now affects presentation, or your rod's now snagging your clothing, or rain gear your losing fish. I'D also think of ways to make the tip lighter, more sensitivity and rod performance can be found here. Some of the guides being used by custom builders are 1/6 the weight of most guides found on production rods. These guides are also easy to find, buy, and no more expensive than the guides used now.

My favorite Loomis crankbait stick is the PR844C.

A new Curado just came out according to a buddy, the bass oriented shops are to have priority on the first shipments.

I bet with decent maintenance your reel will last longer than 2 seasons. I have some graphite body Bantam 101s still in service after 20 years of steelhead, trout, bass and walleye fishing. Drag washers, a few bearings and some lube over the years is all that has been needed. Your reel has a much larger line capacity than my 101s V spools have.

Stripping and putting new whatever on your GLX rod wouldn't alter the warranty on the blank as long as it was done well, you just would never get a rod back built like your rebuild. My GLX rods have all been redone,5 of my new guides equal the weight of one of the original #6 guides on the factory rod, all weigh between 1/4 to 3/8 oz lighter than they did. Much of the weight difference is forward of the reel and increases balance and sensitivity a good bit. I have a GLX HSR 9000 3 piece spinning travel rod that will be much lighter yet when redone.

The epoxy matrix that holds the rod fibers together and the scrim quality that improves the rods hoop strength is where the rubber meets the road. The actual fibers haven't been improved since the 90's when the need for improved aerospace fibers dropped off. Virtually all rods are built on the same fibers, how well it's put together into a blank is where the true quality/cost is.

G Loomis products by agreement with the factory, when you become a dealer, can never be listed for less than the price in their catalog. To give a "deal" I have to list the reel or tackle bought with the rod at a discounted price. If you get caught selling G Loomis rods on sale you lose your dealership, that's why the dealer mentioned above started the list price $20 high.

Micro guides are nothing new in the US either. The year that Diawa first came out with the long spool (Aero) reels, they also brought out the Aero spinning rods with micro guides. Back than they were called match guides and used in Europe and other places for many years before that. G Loomis has used them on the light line 1141 steelhead rods since day one and many others have also.

Anywhere a likely glass blank would work well, such as crankbaiting or spinnerbaits. As a Popping rod for Redfish of course. It would work well for steelhead and like sized salmon throwing spinners or spoons. Will make a nice "Do It All" rod for many fish species. I'd build it with a 7-8 inch rear grip, NPS 18 or 20 reelseat with the threads forward for it's comfortable size and ergonmics, and a 2 or 2 1/2 inch foregrip. 4000 sized reel, Guide sizes for Fuji Alconites (25, 16,12,8L,6,6,6) the 6's are all BLAGs. Guide spacing from tip (5,6,7,7,7,9,10). I'd also narrow the rear grip to a diameter closer to the reelseat for comfort.

The IMX Loomis and IM700 Lamiglas blanks are in the same league. The XMGs are one step up from that. IMX and IM700 has been around giving great service for 20 years or so.

There are a few misconceptions here about your rods as built. First a rod is a structure when built and seperating the parts and comparing them individually is a waste of time. Anyone that compares a rod without also including the reel and line used in the equation is also wasting your time. Again, it is now a singular structure that has attributes or warts depending on what you're using. Whether the weight in your hand comes from the rod or the reel, it's still weight. How it's located can be relevant, but the addition of weight in any form has a negative effect, and can reduce or remove any advantages from the rods design. In the dynamics of rod building there isn't many things that are as useful as cork, it's lightweight and structural integrity is hard to match with any other material, and it's structure in relation to our blank's modulus makes it an amplifier. Many people will try to show you the sensitivity of their product by holding it to their throat or some such nonsense so you can feel transmission of vibrations to your hand. You can do the same thing with a few tin cans and a length of string, I wouldn't fish with it. The input and vibrations you should worry about are hundreds of times lower on the frequency scale. Take your rod and look at the tip oscillations after you flick your wrist, that frequency is in the tens of times a second and is where all to sensitivity and structural attributes of your rod come into play. When that spinnerbait your slow rolling thumps how high up the frequency scale is it operating, what's the frequency of your crankbait wiggle? How high when you jig or worm drifts into that limb? How high when the bass sips your worm into his mouth, or you feel an absence of weight where there should be some? There are a few rodbuilding publications, out there that can explain all these things and rodbuilding.org is a huge resource for finding out what's in the pipe. All the rod manufacturers you could name all subscribe to these publications as this is where the innovation lies. They are in truth about 10 years behind the times, usually when something is published even in these publications the author is 2 years or so past in innovation. I'm sure many of you have heard about or seen casting rods that have guides starting in the top conventional position and they rotate to the bottom like a spinning rod fairly quickly. New innovation? No, the first published attributes of this design is from what I've seen 1909. Split grips, skeletonized reelseats, abreviated foregrip or lack of, look at some of the old Series One Berkleys and the weighted butt Mitchells from the mid to late 80's, and it wasn't new then. Metal reels were the norm, than the nylon/graphite composite reels were supposedly better. Now they say the metal reels are better, give them a few years and a good ad campaign and we'll be buying composite reels again. All this is to get you to pick one product on the rack or display case from all the others. Think the stuff on the rack is still on the leading edge of design, look at the revolver rods from Rich Forhan ( You've probably never heard of him.)in CA, the biggest innovator in bass rods in recent history pobably, and his design ideas are around 15 years old, your just seeing them in pieces now on the factory rods. The Vibronics rods from Steve Gardner, The Swampland Tackle rods and many other builders. These rods aren't any more expensive to own that the better grade stuff on the shelf, but the difference fishing or in your hand. You won't believe it till you see it.

Get with the good people at Swampland Tackle, look at the Castaway blanks. They will set you up with everything you need including a bit of encouragement. It's a very addictive thing, building your own rods. Once you get a few rods under your belt start talking to Bill about micro guiding, split grips, and other modifications to your builds. After a few builds your rods can exceed anything the factories put out easily.