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The Story...
There's always a story to tell! A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting at the rod building bench pondering the next build. Two customer rods, one on the dryer and the other with finished wraps awaiting alignment, were waiting in the wings and for a moment I had a second to catch my breath in between builds and consider an endeavor that would be strictly for my enjoyment, a multi-piece spey.
As spey fishing has begun to gain popularity in our region, I find more of my fly fishing buddies using this new attraction as an excuse to add more gear to their coffers. As a consequence of their fishing obsessions, I've had the luxury of being able to cast quite a few rods from different manufacturers. What I found and readily appreciate is the adaptability of this category. There isn't a set in stone "spey fisher(person)" who uses a certain rod length, handle setup, guide selection, line, leader length, etc... But, in fact, this segment of fly angling is about as modified as any other (maybe more so depending on who is providing their opinion). What impresses me the most is the means of fly delivery. The casting types, accomplished by the masters of the art, is quite magical to witness. Exactly the sort of thing that you watch a couple times and say to yourself, "Man, I want to learn how to do that!" My intrigue has led me to this construction built upon a 13' 6/7wt. 4pc. Beulah blank.
I had a theme in mind; I wished to duplicate the flash of a steelhead in full spawning attire. The vivid colors of a mature buck determined to carry on his lineage hold an inherent prestige that can't help but be admired. The shading, varying hues and multi-color swathe painted across their bodies by the artistic brush of God's own hand never ceases to leave me in awe. I wanted to capture this in a rod, but how? There were far to many colors to incorporate into just one guide wrap. Against my better artistic judgment, I set out using a wrap color progression along the length of the entire rod that compliments the colors found on spawning steelhead.. Starting at the base of the rod, nearest the butt section, with tans and dark colors that would be found on the belly of the fish. Following the theme through the mid-section, chrome wraps, metallic red, metallic green, light green, translucent green, and then black to finish it up at the tip top. This is one of the more outlandish wrap themes I followed, so for lack of a better name...crazy spey was born! If it provides inspiration for a future build, then I accomplished something in this endeavor besides the addition of a heck of a caster to my own arsenal!
Rod Specifications
Guide Wraps: The Steelhead Theme...Beginning on the lower sections, tan main wraps with pewter trim bands (strippers), mid section snakes outfitted with chrome metallic wraps with pewter trim bands, top section ferrule wrapped with red metallic and flowing into green metallic. Last three guides: Green Nylon CP'ed, Green Nylon, and then black thread wrap and tiptop.
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