February 04, 2022
By In-Fisherman Staff
Maybe you’ve seen your favorite pro angler talking about the performance of his or her custom fishing rods, or your weekend fishing buddy keeps landing prized fish with his custom-built ultralight. Well, maybe it’s time to add rod builder to your resumé. Here are six reasons why you need to start building custom fishing rods.
Sometimes when you’re browsing for a fishing rod that’s already finished, you just can’t find exactly what you want. Maybe the handle balance doesn’t feel right, or you might prefer different style guides, or the rod blank itself doesn’t match the specs you need for your particular fishing application. But you still end up leaving with a fishing rod that’s just good enough, but at a price that’s not good at all.
Whether you’re a weekend warrior or you’re lucky enough to get out on the water almost every day, you and that new rod will end up spending a lot of time together.
If you’re tired of talking about the one that got away—on that rod that just doesn’t feel right— it’s time to build your own custom fishing rod and upgrade your on-the-water experience. The best way to get that perfect fishing rod is to just build it yourself.
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1. Rod Blanks Engineered for Your Fishing Needs & Style Perhaps you prefer fishing for a certain species, or you have a specific technique or lure you regularly use. Or maybe you’re bouncing between applications. Whatever your fishing target or technique, Mud Hole carries the perfect rod blank to help you hook ‘em and land ‘em.
Organized by series, applications and specifications, our rod blank selection is second to none. And if you’re not completely sure, our experienced customer service team is available to answer any question and give expert advice … whether on the phone, through chat, or through social media. It’s what we do.
Choose your rod blank and color Not only can you pick the fishing rod blank that is engineered with the right power and action to dominate in your target fishing environment, you can also choose the color you want to show off on the water. From metallic and matte to gloss and satin black, most of today’s rod blanks come with a variety of color options that look as good as they fish.
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2. Select Your Preferred Rod Components Oftentimes, a store-bought fishing rod will have the rod blank you’re looking for, but some (or all) of the other components (guides, grips, tip top, butt) just don’t feel right for your fishing style.
Whether an avid angler or occasionally target panfish in your local spot, you know what you’re looking for in high-quality components – so stop settling for what’s available on the big retail store shelves. With custom rod building, you choose the components to fit your preferences in performance and appearance.
Select the best performing and best-looking components for your next fishing rod. Custom rod building is all about gearing your fishing rod to be your best bet in a given situation. And if the rod looks great doing it, well that’s just puts it over the top! From the guides and guide layout to the grips, reel seat, and overall handle assembly, premium components are available to you with the click of a button in a wide variety of styles, materials, finishes and colors.
3. Custom Grips Maximize Personal Comfort The first and most important connection you have with your fishing rod is the grip. If it doesn’t feel right in your hand, the action and power of the rod blank doesn’t have as much impact to your fishing experience. Choosing the grip style and material for your rod are great ways to tailor the rod to your preferences and to make sure the hours you spend connected to it are enjoyable and effective.
If you prefer cork but don’t like a full grip, you can just build a cork split-grip. If you like EVA and prefer a full grip … just build it! You won’t find this level of customization on the shelf of your local sports equipment store.
Build the handle you always wanted, but can never find. When you consider how much contact you’ll have with your custom fishing rod handle, you want to make sure that it suits your needs in both performance and appearance. Maybe you like the comfort of a specific material, or you want to decrease weight in the butt end. Or, if you just like the appeal of a certain handle setup, all the grip options are easy to customize and readily available to you.
4. Increase Fishing Rod Efficiency & Feel on the Water Because you get to choose all the parts that become your finished custom rod, you can select cutting-edge components that provide for more effective fishing. Whether the obvious benefits of better casting and comfort, or more subtle advantages like reducing weight and balancing the rod, custom rod building helps you in more ways than one on the water.
For instance, if you choose the popular MHX brand, you benefit from rod blanks are typically 40% lighter than traditional rods. By meticulously engineering more sensitivity and strength where it’s needed most, MHX designs blanks that you have to fish to believe. When you build a custom rod, you can eliminate excess weight and create better rod balance, which lead to less fatigue, better feel, and a boost in performance.
5. Balanced Rods Just Feel Better Rod balance is a huge benefit that is often overlooked and is a significant improvement that only rod building can truly bring.
Planning and building a balanced rod isn’t hard and the benefits far outweigh the few extra minutes it takes to design. Rod balance is achieved when the weight in the handle equates to the distributed weight from the top of the handle to the rod tip-top. When done correctly, you can support the entire custom fishing rod with just one finger.
A rod you can fish all day—so lightweight rods, you just have to feel. When a balanced rod feels virtually weightless in your hand, you can outlast the day and take advantage of all your time on the water. Fishing without fatigue makes the on-the-water experience more enjoyable, helping you to stay out longer—and catch more fish!
6. Upgrade Your Fishing Performance In review, you can see that custom rod building helps you pick the perfect rod blank, choose components that suit your purpose and style, customize your rod grips, improve fishing efficiency, and balance the fishing rod. It almost seems too good to be true.
When you consider how all of these factors will impact your fishing performance … improving sensitivity, increasing strength, finding rod stability, and adding unbelievable comfort … custom rod building leads to maximizing your performance with the rod you built specifically for that purpose. You are in control throughout the process. And when you think about it, actually makes more sense than most anglers ever realize.
The Best Way to Start Rod Building
Mud Hole Custom Tackle is the world’s largest supplier of rod building and tackle crafting goods and instruction. Just visit Mud Hole to get started. At Mud Hole, it’s not just about selling our customers the perfect components, tools, and supplies they need along with top notch customers service and advice, it’s also providing all the instruction and resources to help them build! Our YouTube channel hosts hundreds of DIY videos and shows—with over 10 million views. For us, it’s about supporting the ever-growing community of custom rod builders who share our passion for rod building.
