Well here is a rod for myself I have been collecting parts for and been building in my mind while I worked on customer rods. Finally got a chance to sneak it into the work rotation a few days ago while I was waiting for some customer parts to come in.

Blank is a 10ft 3wt (will cast a 3wt or 4wt line nicely) and is a 4pc Olive green in color. Since this is a 10ft rod normally a 10'er will have a bit more tip weight to it than your average 8'6" -9" rod. So to offset that I did two things. One was to use a Down locking Struble reel seat. The other was to insert 1oz of lead weight directly into the butt of the rod in the rear of the reel seat. With the 1oz of weight in the reel seat this rod will sit dead level on one finger if you rest the rod on your finger 1" in front of the grip (i.e- balances out perfect) and because the extra 1oz is right in your hand you don't even feel the extra weight. It actually feel lighter then my CTS 8'6" 4wt simply because it is balanced so well in my hand.

On to the parts- The reel seat hardware is a Struble down locking D1 set of hardware. The insert is a piece of dyed green Big Leaf Maple from Rob at "Bad Dog Burl Source". On the seat hardware I decided to spend some time dressing it up in matching wraps on both the front and rear hoods as well as the front of the barrel. Some of those trim wraps on the thin parts of the hardware were a bit tricky and took some extra time, but I think it was worth the extra effort.

The grip is all dark mix cork with rubberized ends and black trim between the two. The guides are a Green Agate and single foot chrome guides. Wraps were really time consuming but came out exactly how I wanted them. They are Gudebrod classic twist green & black, with black trim, silver a bunch of single and double silver metallic trim bands as well as a bunch of single metallic green trim. This rod has over 100 single turn trim bands on it.

So this is my new baby I will be putting to use in about a week and a half. Should make a great dry fly rod as well as a good long nymphing rod.

















Steve