sarcazmo

What he said. Most blanks at that price range are pretty heads and shoulders above off the shelf rods IMO.

If you go on youtube both getbitoutdoors and mudhole have series designed to help you learn the basics of rod building. I've used them both and they're great.

Never had an issue with Getbit. Their CS has always been on point. Not quite the selection of mudhole but I primarily build on Rainshadow blanks/components.

Very dissappointed in the price. I'll save the 70 bucks and grab it from japan.

There are some nice off the shelf rods. But dollar for dollar they can't approach the value you'll get when you build your own.

Not bashing on MHX, I've built on a few and like them. But if you like St Croix rods its hard to not bring up rainshadow. Their blank GURU was St Croix. Worth a look at least.

I'm lucky to live in an area with an amazing local shop (Hook UP) and try to support my local shops when I can. They do so much volume they occasionally have sales which puts products like reels at price points very similar to what can be found on ebay. That being said a lot of the time its hard to not buy form ebay. Saving 30-40 dollars on average is a ton of extra fishing gear you can buy. Buying on ebay is no different than buying from a store. AFAIC you have the same chance of buying a 'lemon' from either. Just look at the feedback. If they have a lot and its positive you're g2g. Paypal has excellent buyer protection as well.

I picked up a couple Badger patriots from an airbrush forum. I think they were roughly ~$50

Enjoy your unicorn rod! Love that blank.

Not sure, but I assumed they just sold that particular size.

Frequent the other forums. Every once and a while you'll see one for sale. The reason you don't see them on bass tackle anymore is because yum bought the design.

Ask yourself this. How many truly innovative fishing lures/blanks/components etc have come out over the past decade or so? It will be more slight refinements of proven designs with high(er) price tags and flashy components designed to catch the inner bait monkey in us all.

I've got the 3.75 and 4.5 BT bomb molds and love them dearly! If you scour around you can find them. Angling innovations offers a pretty cool beaver mold called "The Stinger' that looks awesome as well. Enforcer baits has a cool 4in beaver style mold as well!

How can you qualify that statement? Have you fished on SCV? NFC HM (Gary isn't even associated with Loomis anymore, its owned by shimano. His new company is North Fork Composites)? K2? Eternity2 blanks? Any of those blanks are on par IMO. If you want 'the best' talk to a rod builder with exactly what you're looking for. Getting what you're looking for should be 'the best' no?

Can't convince everyone. It's my opinion that custom blank offerings are easily on par or better than a lot of the higher end options out there. However, they don't have the reputation or name factor. No matter how amazing a rod is, unless it says G. Loomis (Shimano) customs will never be as good. I've been slowly selling off all my off the shelf rods to get cash to build more customs. The amount of rod you can get for a fraction of the cost is pretty amazing.

I'll agree with the quote. Sounds like you have a pretty decent budget. For close to half of what you'd pay for an exotic JDM rod you could have something exactly the way you want with equal or better performance. For reels I'd take a hard look @ the Alphas SV. I have one on the way and I have a feeling it'll be tough to beat for under $200.

Talk to DVT. Tell him EXACTLY what you're looking for and he'll make some blank recommendations and go from there. The custom blanks out there today are AMAZING and easily on par with the upper echelon of off the shelf rods.

DVT does bomb work. You wouldn't be dissapointed.

Money no object? Have a custom built. Get exactly what you want.

Man I'm going to have to purchase one of these Alphas SV I keep hearing so much about. Might be the 'reel' king under $200.

Those are the exact jigs I use as well. I just add my own skirt to them.

My dragger is one of the few rods not built by me I decided to keep.

What do you think of that rod geek blank with the XS tip? What are you going to use it for?

I think it was a contamination issue. Still trying to narrow it down. I'll be wrapping up part of a broken blank I have laying around and try to eliminate some variables to figure it out further.

Those NFC blanks are legit. I've loved every KLX i've used, and the Helium is supposed to be a step above that. I have a first gen ALX Deputy and Dragger as well. The dragger is AMAZING for c-rigs or heavy jigs IMO, but I'd go Helium over Deputy. Deputy is a fine rod, I just think those NFC blanks offer more value, especially if price is similar. There used to be codes floating around all over the place for discounts on kistler rods as well. Not sure if they're still doing that or not.