A couple of Ice Rods

[DinkADunk]

The photos are of a couple of ice rods I made a couple of weeks ago. The shorter of the two was made from a Thorne Brothers Sweet Thing blank and the longer was built on a Perch Sweetheart blank. I really like the Thorne Brothers rods but I really like the spring bobber setup used by St. Croix. So, I just rolled by own from the two The spring bobbers are St. Croix (one light, one medium) but the holder is a size three single foot fly guide with a rubber grommet installed (Hardware Hank). The guides on both rods are Fuji Hardaloy's and the reel seats are the smaller Fuji (size 5) plate seat which work well with the smaller reels that matchup with these blanks (I use the size 6 for walleye rods). I like plate seats. You can tape them on or use rod winding thread (with or without a finish). As for how they fish? I like them a lot especially with a slow bite. I have the best of both worlds now, a very sensitive well designed spring bobber from St. Croix matched with a sensitive rod with lots of backbone that are Thorne Brothers forte.

[fiskyknut]

Sweet lookin rods there DinkaDunk. I plain love my Perch Sweetheart and it has been very good to me this season for sure. It's not just for them Perch either!!! Next winter I'll have 2 in my bag.

fiskyknut

[trapperdirk]

Very well done Dinkadunk . Nice to see quality work .Trade you my St. Croix Legends with misaligned eyes and loose tip for yours .

TD

[Sandmannd]

Nice rods. Where do you find the reel seats?

[Northlander]

Very nice job. I have a Midwest rods with those reel seats and they work well. Very easy to switch reels if needed without messing with unwinding tape or having a sticky handle.

You surely have a great idea with the rods you have and the spring bobbers. Best of both worlds like you say. Now go get some fish with them man.

[DinkADunk]

Quote:

---

Nice rods. Where do you find the reel seats?

---

I got the reel seats from Mudhole and the cork (1/8" hole) from Janns Netcraft. I use size "C" thread (Gudbrod Trimar) to wrap the reel seats on. The size 5 seats work well for small reels (the little Shimano and Tica), the size 6 seats work better for 750/1000 class reels (Shimanon Symetre 750). The seats are pretty cheap (6$) and it's easy to try them on a rod (use tape) you currently have and then permanently attach them if you want.

[FishGUY]

DinkADunk, Great looking rods, I have both the Thorne Brothers rods and the St Croix rods. You are not kidding when you say you have the best of both worlds.

[augernaut]

The look great! How much do the Thorne Bros. blanks cost? I have been kicking around the idea of picking up a few and building on them. I build on the St. Croix blanks, and they are nice, but I want to give the TB blanks a shot. The plate seats are nice too - I've seen guys inlet the cork under the seat, and around the whole grip where the thread goes to secure the seat - that way when they wrap and finish the thread, it ends up flush with the surrounding cork. Yours looks very nice though - clean wraps, and I love trimar thread too :-)

[DinkADunk]

These Thorne Brothers blanks were around $30. They come long and you cut them to length. I made a couple last year on St. Croix blanks and inletted the cork so that I could get a flush finish on the reel seat, but it really doesn't make any difference performance or feel wise. The thread bump isn't very high, besides if I want to take the seat off I can and still have a fully formed cork handle.

[upnorth]

Very nice work!! The beauty of building your own Custom Rods ain't getting them cheaper....it is getting exactly what you want.

[so haaad]

Yes, very nice work indeed! Well done, DinkADunk. I've made three ice rods this year and am just finishing a flyrod. Building a rod is kind of like tying flies for flyfishing. It's a great feeling catching something on a custom ice rod that you made. This is the first time that I've seen the Mudhole reel seats outside of their catalogs. They look very nice.

[foulpole18]

Very nice. I do like the way you made the spring bobbers. You can't beat a TB blank IMO.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Very nice working handy work... having and using a rod that you made yourself is very rewarding. I made a couple of panfish rods that I bought the blanks from thorne brohters. They still are my 2 fave rods that I own.

again, nice work... and nice work on the spring bobbber adaptation.

[JoeB]

nice looking rods D.A.D. Do you make these for sale or would you think about doing it? PM me at [email protected] please,

Thanks, JoeB

[DinkADunk]

Nope, I don't make them for sale. It's pretty easy to do yourself. If you have a TB rod just buy a single foot, size three fly guide, some wrapping thread, finish, and wrap it yourself.

[ChemE]

Where do you buy your supplies, (guides, wrap, handle, etc)?

Thanks!

[DinkADunk]

I bought the blanks at Thorne Brothers. I bought the cork rings from Jann's Netcraft, glued them up and then turned them on my lathe (I do woodturning so I have a lathe, others use an electric drill in a stand, cork is easy to work with). The other stuff comes from various sources, some bought at Throne Brothers, some from Mudhole, some from others (check out rod-building.org for resources). For this project (adding a SF guide to the back of a rod) all of the materials can be purchased from Thorne Brothers.