Red Wine Lake Revisited

Had another opportunity to fish my buddy's private lake near Atlanta - 85-degrees with 20-mph winds, water temperature high 50's to low 60's. Had a wonderful 4-hours. We caught about a dozen fish - Keith's largest (not pictured) was about 2# and I caught two 3.5# and one a good 4#. Using JIGS - what else?

4-more Rods

Yep! I'm working on 4-more rods; 3-personal rods and 1-for Blue Fleck, a Bass Chat bud. I have BF's rod wrapped and coated with CP - Tomorrow I'll apply the first coat of epoxy. Turned out nice.

It's a "Blue Fleck" design with dark purples, blues, blacks and silver. It's Subtle but BF said "no bling." The spinning rod is an SJ842, 7', Med. Lt. with a Fast tip and good backbone. Fuji Alconite Guides, St. Croix Cork and PacBay Reel Seat. Hope he likes it.

Crank Bait Rod

I finished whipping the guides on this 7'6" Crank Bait rod today, applied some Color Preserver and now it's drying - tomorrow (if the humidity isn't too bad) I'll apply epoxy. The color is dark purple, with Gold and Purple Metallic trim. It looks like blue in the picture. This is my second exposed fore-grip rod - I think I like them better than the cork fore-grip. I Spiral wrapped this rod as I always do on Casting Rods.

New Rods

I've started working on the rod blanks I purchased at the ICRBE so thought I'd share some pictures. The pic quality is not good - sorry. One is a Heavy Flipping Stick 7', with Fuji Alconite Concept guides. The Blue/Silver one is a Med. Hvy. 6'10" Castaway Blank, split grip with the same Fuji Alconite Concept guides. I'm now working on 7'6" Med. Hvy. Rainshadow, split-grip casting rod and of course, Fuji Alconites guides. I install all the guides on casting rods in Spiral wrap style. On a spiral wrap (often called Acid wrap) the guides start out on top like a conventional casting rod, then spiral around the blank like a spinning guide wrap. This eliminates rod-torque when fighting fish.

While at the Expo, I met Denny Kaneoka of Seeker Rods - Seeker builds mostly high end S-Glass rods for salt-water but makes about 3-fresh water cranking rods - in fact, KVD won the 2010 Classic using the Seeker Blank - long story short, he is sending me two (one for me, one for Isaac) of those same rod blanks. He gave Isaac and me cool caps too. Turns out he has kids in Franklin, TN and travels here from Southern California 4-times a year - so I offered to take him fishing next time he's here. Free is Sweet!

ICRBE - High Point, NC

My Grandson, Isaac and I just returned from the International Custom Rod Building Exposition in High Point, NC. Several Thousand fishing rod builders were there from all over the world either giving seminars or selling their wares. We bought about 7-blanks and all the fixin's to finish them. Even though it was a 7.5 hour drive each way, it was worth it to see all the rod building equipment and Icons of the trade in one place. A great time.

Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011 FCF

Went fishing today at Fall Creek Falls State Park - rented a jon boat, hooked up my trolling motor and went straight to the Rocks on the Dam - 3-casts later, I hooked this 6 lb 12oz large mouth. At least that's what my 15-year old scales say but I think it was closer to 8 -I'll check my scale with a 2-pound weight later today to see how close it really is. Either way, it's the only one I caught today. Water temperature was 41 - 43 degrees, wind out of the North at 5mpg, ambient temperature 59-degrees. Using at 3/4 oz. Black & Blue Football head jig made by Stan Sloan Zorro Bait. No one was around to take a picture so I had to do it with one hand on my cell phone camera. Wish I could have gotten more of the fish.

I inherited a fishing dog! His name is McBeal - I think I'll call him Mac. He's a paper carrying certified Yorkshire Terrier. He thinks he's 10-ft tall and bullet-proof but he's actually pocket sized and weighs 4-pounds! Cute guy and we're hitting it off very well.