Can someone with NO experience build a high-quality fly rod for less than the price of a new manufactured rod?

your biggest expense will of course be the blank. then the guides, reel seat, insert, etc.

l've built quite a number of rods but only a few fly rods. perhaps half a dozen. my first ever rod built from scratch was back in 1966. a spinning rod. it wasn't terribly ugly, it worked, got me lots of fish.

one of the books by dale clemens could be of great assistance. some videos should work too.

but, yes, you should be able to do it with little difficulty. take your time, don't rush it. leonard and several other companies back east will sell you all the components, even the thread. which l'll give a bit of recommendation... use size A, NON-NCP. someone's like gudebrod. get your main color and a trim color. use color preserver on the trim so it will stay bright and no color preserver on the main wrap so the blank will show through and give a more professional appearance.

oh... l'm not that guy. but perhaps l can help. on a specific item, you can email and ask.

overall, you may save between a third and a half. closer to a third.

There was a time you could build a rod for 25 cents on the dollar. High-end brand-name blanks were really cheap compared to the finished rods. Now they are only a few bucks less than a factory rod, IF you can get their blanks. If you want the experience of building you own rod you will indeed find the same satisfaction as tying your own flies. It won't necessarily be a big money saver.

Most people with the interest can produce a very good quality rod on their first try. Just get the resources you need to feel comfortable and take your time. You can easily learn from a book, or probably find most if what you need to know in the Web. The second rod I built was a 9 foot flyrod for salmon. I epoxied the wrappings and have landed many dozens of fish without any rod failures.

If you build a flyrod your choice of eyelets and the spacing pattern will have a LOT to do with your satisfaction. Choosing nice heavy-duty ceramic eyes can be a disaster in how the rod flexes while casting. A kit will have them matched, otherwise chose eyelets similar to a finished version of your blank. Tape the eyes on and test the feel of the rod if in doubt.

I would predict you can build a rod you will be proud of, that will work just fine. You get to fancy-up your eye wraps, etc, and your rod should look as good or better than a high-priced factory version. You may eventually get interested in doing fancy butt wraps, like I did. Wraps make rods REALLY your own, and they scream CUSTOM, not just owner-built!

PS, you DON'T need an expensive rod wrapping device. You can make one from scrap wood with a couple of spring loaded spool holders for next to nothing.

Hello, I thought I would try building my own rod(s) and my experience was it was going to be a significant cost up front. There are a lot of components necessary i.e. the blank, handle, line guides, windings, paint etc. Then there's a matter of setting up a work bench. You'll need the blocks or jig which support the rod as you work on it and the winding thread holders used when applying the line guides.

I did in fact build a "sort of fishing rod". The eyes were less than straight, the wrappings looked like kite string and the epoxy for the handle never did cure out right causing it to slip.

Building any kind of rod is going to require a LOT of patience, a significant up front cost for materials and most importantly, a really good understanding of what materials works best for the many different applications. My advice to anyone is this: Know you are almost guaranteed to mess up a lot of stuff in the beginning. Try to find someone who will share their experience and skill or invest in some of the available video's for rod building. IF by some strange chance the skills needed for successful rod building grows, there's always friends who might be willing to buy your rods and in turn that will either make or break you as a amateur rod builder.

Best bet is to buy instead of building fishing rods.

Sorry I thought you were joking, but yes its absolutely possible:There are books out there that can show you step by step how to do it:Thats how I learned to tye flies, reading books and then applying:Also asking someone that knows helps:I learned to flyfish by having the guts to try even if I didnt know how to: I got frustrated so I asked a fly angler and he basically taught me how to fly fish on the spot:We fished together for half the day, with him showing me what he knew and yes we did tear them up:If I could count we probably caught between 60-70 fish that day:What I am saying is that sometimes guts is what people need to learn and after a while youll get it: I learned how to live in the wild, mountain bike, white water raft, because I managed to get the guts to try and learn

I plan on building rods also , but I am just limited with time,so I dont want to do something half assed:Good luck and take care friend

Ask pheasants tail , hes in the rod building business:

With you having NO experience at rod building, i would say that it is possible but highly unlikely

Go**amn, what the hell is with all the spam?

Anywho! I dunno if your question is serious, but that's funny as hell! Of course you can! Just build it on a Ugly Stik blank! You're looking for muneymouse, by the way!