First Fiberglass Fly Rod

Red-banded agate stripping guide on Lamiglas Spring Creek blank. The reflections on the epoxy make it look wavy. It's not. Nice smooth finish for a change.

Finished work on my Lamiglas Spring Creek 7′ 6″ 4wt a couple weeks ago. I tried it out for the first time over the weekend in the Smokies. Jacqulyn and I backpacked to a stream on the North Carolina side for three nights. More on that later. I tried the rod with both my Thebault silk line and a Cortland Peach. This was my first experience with silk. A real pleasure to cast. The rod cast like a dream at the shorter distances I was working. Silk line and a dry fly. Never cast much further than 20 feet or so. The next day I strung up the Cortland Peach. I rigged a dry fly with a soft hackle dropper. Didn’t much like how it cast with this set up. I couldn’t get the rig to turn over well with the stiff breeze coming straight downstream. Just didn’t feel right. I removed the dropper and all was well. I kept the colors simple on this rod. I used a rust red YLI silk for the main wraps with antique gold YLI for trim. I added a gold British hook tender which I’ll rarely use but liked how it looked. I usually wrap my leader around my reel frame and hook the fly to a guide. I wrapped on a red-banded agate from Arcane for the stripping guide. I didn’t add a signature wrap or feather inlay to this rod. I wanted to give it a simple, classic look. Probably the best finish work I’ve done. All the wraps had a good smooth finish over them with pretty even over runs. I think the rod is beautiful and had a great time fishing it. It’s battle-tested now with a good many browns and rainbows to its credit.

British style hook tender. Also a nice shot of the Thebault silk line.

After arriving home, I tested the rod at longer distances out in the yard using the silk line. With more line out, I could really feel the rod load. I was easily punching out as much distance as I normally get from my much faster St. Croix 4 wt with a plastic line. Just a real pleasure to cast. I think this Spring Creek blank must be faster than the honey line. It really didn’t seem as slow as I expected. I’d rate it close to one or two of my medium graphite blanks in action, but I could feel what the fiberglass was doing a little better. The rod doesn’t exactly feel like bamboo, but it has some of that same character. Some more photos of the rod below.

Shot of the handle area includes Pflueger Medalist reel spooled with silk line. All reel seat hardware and winding check are nickel silver by Struble. Cocobolo insert.

Ferrule area. It looks like my ferrule wrap on the female side is uneven. It's not. The tip of the female ferrule actually came a little uneven.

Take care,
Nathan