OVER the last few issues we have had some really good feedback on our rod building column. Some enquiries are from anglers looking for one of the made up rods in a tackle shop, while others are from budding rod builders out to make a rod of their own.
By far one of the most popular requests we have had lately has been a rod for spinning off the rocks and for use in the surf. Today there are many superb blanks for this purpose around the place from one manufacturer or another.
The ones that we build a lot of rods up on are the FT 120 series from Snyder Glas and the FSU 120 series from Pacific Composites or Kilwell.
These blanks have been around for a long time with their fast taper leading themselves towards spinning baits and lures. The base blank is 120 inches long (or ten feet) and is available in four, five and six wraps.
The six wrap version is a real brute stick with incredible lifting power, though the stiffer tip is not as friendly for casting lures unless you want to pelt out monster lures weighing in at around the 100 gram mark.
There are marginal differences in the various manufacturers. I find that the Snyder Glas version has a slightly faster taper, giving it a finer tip. The four wrap version is my favourite and while it can handle up to ten kilo line it is an ideal six or eight kilo rod.
The light tip has good casting ability and anglers that are accustomed to much longer rods will be surprised at just how far they can cast out with these spin sticks.
Longer rods do have an advantage in the surf as the height of the line coming off the tip of the rod clears those waves breaking in front of you, reducing the amount of drag on the line.
The ten foot rod being a bit shorter will still do the job and if you hold the rod a little more vertically than you normally would, it shouldn’t be a problem. The versatility of these blanks by cutting and trimming here and there or just leaving them standard is quite amazing.
The boys from Lively Lures had a ball with the spin sticks many years ago when they first kicked off, pelting out Casta Blastas from the rocks in the Gold Coast Seaway. The number of big tailor and trevally these boys pulled in at night on black lures was more than just a little impressive.
As mentioned, the fast taper of these rods leaves a relatively fine tip, so you can cast lures from thirty grams to eighty grams without too much worry. The large diameter of the butt gives you good casting power and lifting power that is pretty well only available in fast taper blanks of this calibre.
The walls of the blank can still be relatively thin, keeping the rod light, with the support of the wide diameter making up the power for the short fall in wall thickness of the blank.
This lifting power comes into its own when you lift a big fish up from the rocks. With real big stuff, a gaff is a must, but you can hoist a pretty good size fish in most cases and have confidence in the rod.
As fas as the butt configuration of the rod goes there will be plenty of variables here because of the diversity in grip lengths that anglers like. For the purpose of this exercise we will build the rod up with a standard 14 inch butt plus cap which allowing for a bit of shrinkage in the grip gives you about fifteen inches overall.
The reel seat should be one with a cushioned hood so that the reel sits securely in the winch fitting. For this we use a FUJI FPSD 32 with the fixed hood on the upper side.
Some reels will not fit firmly in reel seats that do not have this cushioned hood. Having the reel wobble around as you continually cast and retrieve lures or play a good fish isn’t what we want to see on a rod we have custom built for ourselves.
A ten inch foregrip should suit most when fighting the fish. Often you will reach higher than the top grip when casting so don’t worry about trying to make the grips go all the way up to where the top hand grasps when casting - you could end up with a very long and unsightly foregrip.
The type of reel that is most likely to be used to complete this outfit would be the 750, 850 and 950 Penn Spinfishers, Shimano’s TSS 4 or 6500 BaitRunner or maybe a few of those big spinning reels that Daiwa have.
Whichever way you go, a spool with a good line capacity, strong gearing and the ability to resist corrosion and the hard knocks of beach and rock fishing is pretty well a must.
FUJI’s high mount guides help us a lot with this kind of rod, taking control of the line as it spirals up the blank and keeping it at a nice angle to that of the reel’s spool. In theory the line should spiral off the spool to the stripping guide in the shape of an ice cream cone.
From here we gain control of the line through this guide and the next 25M, then down to the standard BSVLG guides from here. This reduces any vast change in angles minimising the line slap against the blank so that the line flows smoothly through the runners and out through the tip.
A heavy duty FUJI BULT tip is used. While the silicon version is a much better guide tip, the hard knocks that are often encountered on the rocks are not all that friendly to the silicon inserts and this is why we tend not to use them in this situation unless specified and the angler is well aware of what can happen.
These blanks are not at all hard to get a hold of and most of your larger tackle stores should have one of the blanks from at least one manufacturer in stock. If they don’t, it should not take them very long to order one in.
Perhaps the only item that many stores will not have standard on their shelves is the high mount BHVLG 40 and the BHVLG 25M guide that we use as the two stripping guides. Make sure that you do go to the effort of using a high mount as in the case of this particular rod it makes a noticeable difference in casting performance.
I hope that this rod recipe has helped out those of you that have been writing in for something along these lines. The beauty of the blank is that it is not overly expensive, has been tried and proven over many, many years and is available in three different wraps to suit the line class that you want to fish with
SPECIFICATIONS:
Blank - Snyder FT 4120
Butt - 14” x 1” Eva
Winch - FUJI FPSD 32 (fixed hood up)
Foregrip - 10” x 1” EVA
Cap - BC 1 1/4”
Tip - FUJI BULT 10 / 3.6
Guides - FUJI BSVLG
10 - 175mm
12 - 190mm
16 - 210mm
20 - 250mm
FUJI BHVLG 25 M - 300mm
Stripper - FUJI BHVLG 40 - 455mm
