Like many who use a 9ft fly rod out of a kayak, I found that the length of the rod was a hindrance in close country. The length usually means that, when it is carried in the rod holder, some portion of the tip is extending past the front of the yak when pushing through brush and mangroves in small creeks and estuaries making them prone to breakage. The length also makes it more difficult to cast in these conditions. The new Sage range of shorter rods are great but are around the 8ft range and are still a little long for these conditions.

Off-the-shelf 6 weight rods in the 7 foot range suitable for estuary work for bream and flathead as well as being suitable for bass and saratoga in the impoundments are few and far between. After some research and talking to the guys at Frogleys, a Samurai S001X blank was selected. This 7 ft blank that is rated for 2 – 3 kg line and with a 9mm butt and 1.88mm tip it seemed ideal.

Not having built a fly rod before, I was reluctant to do anything before some basic testing. Some snake guides scrounged off a broken rod and an old light weight reel were taped to the blank and after a few trial casts and some adjustments, it seemed to throwing a SA Headstart line quite comfortably.

Once the rod was bound and the glues/coatings had cured, some real testing revealed that although it could handle normal 6wt WF lines, it was not performing as required. The problem was the line design not the rod. I wanted to be able to make short quick casts with a minimum of false casting. What was needed was a short shooting head type line similar to the design used on the Sage Bass Series of rods. The solution was to cut about 8 - 10 feet off the front of an old 9 wt floating line that had a disagreement with a propeller. To get a front taper, the head was then cut about 12 inches behind the rear taper and turned around. The running line was spliced (needle knot) onto the back of the head secured with superglue gel and over bound with some flat waxed tying thread to even out the bump at the join.

A lot of people have now had a cast of the rod and it has exceeded expectations. It was really good to use in tight country amongst the timber and brush at Borumba Dam a couple of weeks ago and it handled Saratoga up to 65 cm with ease. The other big advantage of the shorter rod over a 9 ft rod that I hadn’t thought of before is that it makes landing the fish out of a kayak a lot easier.

All up the cost was well under $200 and would have been less if I didn’t have to buy some good quality epoxy and binding thread.

Nial Logan