The rod I built for my dads Christmas present.

[carolina-rig-01]

I just thought the other day about how I haven't been posting pictures of the last few rods I have built. I don't know why other than I just keep forgetting. This rod here is the one I am most proud of out of all the rods I have built so far. There were a lot of things I did for the first time on this rod. It is the first rod I have used micro guides on, the first time I actually static tested for guide placement rather than just using a recipe or chart, the first time I have used cork of any kind much less burnt cork, and it's the first grip that I actually made rather than just buying a pre-made grip. I learned more on this rod build than any other rod I have built. Bubba was out of the country so he didn't get kept up to date on this one like he usually is, but Jrob got a lot of pictures of the progress and was a huge help when I ran into problems. I will readily admit that it isn't anywhere near as eye appealing as some of the rods that the other guys crank out. I love looking at the thread work those boys put down but there are two reasons I make my rods a lot more plain looking. For one thing, I haven't spent any time learning how to do the fancy wraps so my talent level isn't there to do the decorative thread work. The second reason is because I prefer my rods to weigh as little as possible as long as they still balance well. One day I might try my hand at decorative wraps but for the time being, I am really happy with simple wraps and pimping out the grips a little bit.

This rod was built on a 7' MH St. Croix SCIII blank with a moderate tip. This is a cranking stick that will be used to throw mainly squarebills. I used Fuji alconite size 4 micro guides. To dress it up a little I made the grip out of bunt cork rings which I think looked awesome! I didn't put a fore grip on this rod to further reduce weight. I did do a few trim bands in the split grip just to help balance the rod a little bit and as you can see in the picture with the reel on the rod, it balanced pretty dang perfect. The final weight of this rod is right at 4 oz. which is actually a touch heavier than I expected but it's balanced well enough that it feels much lighter than that with a reel on it. We took her out side Christmas morning and man this thing will cast a mile with very little effort and it's crazy smooth.

I am sorry for the poor quality of the pictures. I just took these on my phone to send to Jrob while it was turning after I applied the finish. I fully intended to take some good pictures with Britneys camera yesterday morning but I totally forgot and now it's at dads house.