S Hovanec

They are quite stiff. They are stamped like a guide, not bent wire.

Times a tickin'. Got those foodge guides in yet?

I'd like to know where the dude thought you were gonna pull that NRX blank from!?!?

That's just the tip of the iceberg! Wait til the local sticks call and ask you to sponsor them. In return for free rods, they will promote your business if they win!

LOVE those Kigan hook keeps!

My and my wife's personal builds are all on hi mod blanks. For customers, it depends what they want and what their budget is.

Lil heavy for bass. 11wt. Musky/pike/salmon. 2 of those are green tho!

It matters more to me than the fish. I also think it depends on the water clarity. The waters I fish are very clear, can see bottom in 25' on some days. I fish braid with a long FC leader. I was using P-line Halo as leader. It was mist green and i couldn't see it on the water. When I ran out, I bought Inviz-X. The only reason I switched was because the store didn't have Halo.

You laugh. Green rod, green line, green spindle on the reel. Green fly.

Thank you. I have a SCV on the bench now that I'm pairing with a TwinPower. I'll snap some pics when its done. Hope to be fishing it next week. Don't have a pic of it, but I have a SCV + Stradic Mg that's pretty sharp too. That one will soon be my wife's. Will be keeping the Mg for something else and getting her a new JDM Stradic.

NFC + CI4 RodGeeks + Fuego SCV + Stella & SCIV + Certate SCV + Steez Sadly, only one of them is mine.

I've always said that life's too short to fish with ugly equipment. I go to great lengths to match rods to reels and reels to rods.

Coating and curing are 2 different things. I tried to skip the cure process on some weights I coated before. all of the paint chipped off from use or banging around in my tackle box.

Bait monkey is on my shoulders today. He's whispering in my ear that I need to order that JDM Stradic if I expect it to be here in time to be my wife's anniversary gift! Romantic, I know.

Exactly. There's more to a custom rod than picking parts and colors. It does seem in this day and age of electronic communications, people want to remove the human aspect of everything. Click a few buttons, place an order and have it show up in a few weeks. That kind of thing is not for me.

I didn't know we were getting that specific. My answer would then be: Me. I make my favorite spinning rod........on St. Croix blanks.

My absolute favorite rod is a St Croix 6'9" MLXF. Soon to be replaced with a 6'10" MLXF extended to 7'

Truth be told, if its a blank I'm familiar with, I do not static test. I haven't tested a Croix 69mlxf since I took these pics!

While I'm sure baitcasters work fine for dropshotting, it's not the best tool for deep applications. I had a stubborn friend on my boat a couple years ago that would not pick up his spinning rod, despite not catching. We were in 50' of water and we both would drop our lures at the same time. Mine would drop straight to the bottom, while he had to keep peeling line off by hand. I was hooked up on several occasions before his bait was even close to bottom.

No. On the PA limited lakes, you cannot operate a motor exceeding the stated HP limit.

I do a nail knot over a......ummmm..... a nail!

I would seriously re-engineer my deck design to shave some weight. Aluminum channel or pultruded fiberglass instead of wood. Aluminum sheet for the floor as opposed to plywood. 5 batteries is absurd. I'd consider 2, unless you have a 24v trolling, then 3. 1 for cranking/electronics and 1 (or 2) for the electric motor. I have stripped down and rebuilt 3 boats over the years and I learned one valuable lesson......the 4th boat, was ordered NEW.

Tiger trout from Custom Fly Grips.

Little peek at an upcoming build that may or may not be for a member on here. Squared-up inlay Rough turned grip.

The beauty of it is, if you don't like it, you can add the bumper later.