A few months ago an idea began brewing when I found out a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. As a show of support and an attempt to provide a bright spot in an otherwise very difficult time, I approached the Flymphforum.com gang to collaborate on a built as a group. I asked here for suggestions regarding long glass rods for fishing small soft-hackles and flymphs as my friend is a devout wingless-wet artist. He has been an inspiration to so many, it was not difficult to find people who wanted to join in the opportunity to show him some love.

Many of you noted (as I'm still a novice to this craft) that a glass rod longer than 9' in a light line wt would be ineffective and more than a few suggested looking to Mike Mcfarland for a recommendation. Without hesitation Mike suggested that he had been working on something very special, a new line of S-Glass that would be ideally suited to fishing small wet flies. His 9'2", 5wt 3 piece blank was going to be just the thing. He let me know that while has not offered these blanks for sale, he wanted to make an exception and was very generous in his offer. As a group we were very excited to have the opportunity to offer our friend a rod build on one of these blanks. And it certainly turned out to exceed my expections. A big thanks to Mike for his generosity and help with making what was going to be a modest rod into something very special.

























I initially wanted a 10' 3wt rod for the build and approached Hardy to inquire about getting one of their graphite blanks for this build, but they could not release any blanks. They did however want to help and offered an amazing discount allowing us to offer our friend a Hardy Cascapedia reel to match the rod. Others contributed to purchase the tube, rod sock, fly line (Mike recommended the Hardy matched line for this blank). You can also see the handcrafted leather fly box and friends from all over the world contributed with flies to complete the package. It's an amazing thing to see people's generosity and show of support.

(Sorry for the long post.)

I need to also note that WayneB turned the reelseat insert from a burled oak tree in his yard. A perfect match and top notch job.

I mentioned in the Fisher rod post the scheme for that build was a practice run for this one. The wraps are Size A nylon with CP and Spars. The TiCH stripping guide came from Golden Witch which makes for a very classic overall look.

Thanks for looking. Any imput for improvement would be greatly appreciated and is really the only way to justify such a long post. Again, sorry about that.

w

I'm with Colt and Gearboy, great work and color choices!

Dusty

Wow, thanks so much for the kind words. I really am touched by the support from so many during the process, both here and with the FlymphForum group (some are here, which is how I found you a few months ago and started pestering with so manyquestions. Thank you all for your patience and generosity with your experience. =) ) I felt a lot of pressure to get this right. My friend is fighting very hard to beat this thing and will no doubt be back knee deep in cold water as soon as possible. I hope he fishes this rod very hard for a long time.

I certainly didn't want this to be like looking back at some of my first flies. It took a couple years before things really started to come to light in my tying. No doubt, after my 50th build I will see things, have some experiences and more peculiar preferences, but I am happy with the way this one turned out. Trying to find that balance between a traditional asthetic with a nod to vintage glass and providing the best functioning rod for his particular style and water was a big part of this for me. Trying to build a custom rod for someone in secret without their input and based on what you know about them from discussions on fly tying and fishing preferences is a tough thing to do. I've known this gentleman for about 7-8 years now, but have not had the privilege of meeting in person or fishing together yet. I hope to change that this year.

Anyway, here are a couple of things that I see regarding the build, but pointing out the things that I'm not aware of will make me a better builder. So any feedback would be much appreciated. I know some argue that single foot guides allow one to shoot more line. But there isn't a lot of double-hauling or 50' casts with this method of fishing, so I felt okay staying with more traditional looking hardware. The stripping guide is a 10mm too, which may seem small if you're building a bass or steelhead rod or needing longer casts. But again, this is stealthy wild trout fishing in the North East. One other thing that I noticed was the build up of CP and varnish. I would have liked to have made that a little finer, but I needed 3 good coats of CP to be sure the varnish wouldn't discolor the wraps. I don't think the build up is excessive, some may even prefer it, and if you're used to fishing commercial rods, it might look skimpy, but I would like to fine tune that process. Probably starting by lighter colored blanks and no CP at all. - I'll take this to the building section with more specific questions.

Any other suggestions on the build design would be very helpful. This is the only rod forum I interact with. There is a level of expertise, hospitality and community here that is a rare thing and I appreciate it very much.