Blog Archives

Custom Fly Fishing Rods by Chris Lantzy, Custom Rod Maker

Trout Stocking In Pennsylvania

2/28/2015

Tired of winter yet? The record cold temperatures & all the snow are really putting it to a lot of us. Okay winter, we've had enough.

Sooner or later this winter has got to end, right? Well there is hope for warmer days.

Recently the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission released it's pre-season & in-season trout stocking schedule. That means it won't be long before trout are being put into streams all around the Commonwealth, in preparation for anglers to fish for them!!

The stockings are listed by county. On their website you can find interactive maps to see where stocking will occur. You can also volunteer to help put the trout in the stream, too. On each stocking is listed the time & location of where the truck will start out, so you can follow along & help put the fish in the water if you want to.

You can look up any trout stocking by county in PA by going HERE.

The release of the trout stocking schedule, along with pitchers & catchers reporting for baseball spring training, are two of the things that give me a glimmer of hope while it's 25 degrees below zero outside & every trout stream around the rod shop is frozen over. These are the things that tell me that it won't be long now until we're really fly fishing again!!

Trout Painting by Edward A Page

2/24/2015

I like art that depicts just about anything to do with angling. So I took note when I saw this painting had recently sold on an auction website. It's by Edward A Page, an artist I'm not familiar with - which just shows how ignorant I am about this stuff. Anyway, I know what I like & I like this painting.

Page was from Lynn, Massachusetts & lived from 1850 until 1928. He was a landscape & marine painter & part of a group of artists know as the "Lynn Beach Painters". Experts reckon this was painted in the late 1800's.

In the painting, along with two nice brook trout, you'll see both the fly rod & the fly that was used to maybe catch these trout. Looking at the rod, it's most likely made from Calcutta cane. It's probably a longer rod, of about 10 feet or longer, & it looks to have a leather or celluloid wrap over the grip area. It would have been a cool rod. Also, we can see that some type of bright attractor wet fly was used to fool those beauties.

It's a beautiful painting that I wouldn't mind have hanging on my wall.

(click on the photo for a larger image)

Old Herter's Fly Line

2/19/2015

For those of you who haven't heard of Herter's, they used to be a huge mail order sporting outfitter, a lot like Cabela's & others are today. Do an internet search about them & you'll see that they carried everything you could possibly need & (bunch of stuff you didn't) for fishing, hunting, camping, & any outdoor activity.

I was looking through one of their old catalogs the other day, from 1979, in particular some of the fly tackle they used to sell. I stumbled upon their offerings of fly line & thought you might get a kick out of seeing that page of the catalog.

Boy, if that line was any good (I never used their fly line, at least that I remember) & if someone would sell them new for those prices today, I'd order a truck load!! Oh man, fly fishing back then.....those were the days!!

Click on the photo below for a larger image.

Fly Fishing Tricks of The Trade

2/15/2015

Through all the years I've been fly fishing, I've heard of & seen anglers go to some pretty bizarre extremes to catch a fish. Some of those tricks have been rooted in some kind of scientific theory (not that angling is an exact science), while others have been based on what you'd have to call "old wives' tales". Now while the reasons behind these tricks sometimes actually make sense when explained by the practitioner, I'd like to think that I still have enough marbles left in my head to weed out the ingenious from the crazy ('crazy' being a relative term in fly fishing).

For example: there's a specific kind of case-making Caddis larva that will use its mucus (or some kind of secretion) to form a kind of rope to tether itself to a rock on the stream bed. It can & will suspend itself by this tether while floating in the current. Well, as luck would have it, their tether will sometimes become dislodged from the rock, sending the larva tumbling down the stream where it becomes an easy meal for a trout.

Enter the ever-thinking angler.....some fly fishers will, armed with this knowledge, paint the first few inches of their tippet behind the fly white (while fishing an imitation of this cased larva) in order to copy the appearance of one of the above mentioned unfortunate larva.

Another example: I have known anglers who have kept their flies at home in the refrigerator, embedded in Limberger or other smelly cheese. As you may know, Limburger is a very smelly cheese. These folks claim that by making their flies take on the smell of the cheese it attracts the fish to their flies like nothing else.

Hmmm? Well personally, I'm not about to start painting my tippets or storing my flies in cheese, but who am I to argue with someone who's catching fish? I will sometimes rub my nymphs in the mud from the stream bed & I do believe that the color(s) of my fly are important. I have a few other practices I do which make sense to maybe only me - & that's the point. If it makes sense to you & you've has success doing it (& you're not breaking any laws), then go ahead & do it (in a humane way, please). Let everybody else laugh. Hey, they all laughed at Edison & Einstein, too so you're in good company! To the non-angling population we fly anglers all appear to be at least a little crazy at best. If we are, I'm fine with that. It's one illness I'm happy to have. Just keep those stinky flies away from me!!!

Accessories Video

2/12/2015

I've just published yet another video, this one featuring the accessories I offer. It's a little mix of still photos & motion pictures, showing the wallets, cases, bags, & rod tubes that are made right in my shop.

When I got really going in rod making, I was sewing all the bags for my rods. I was also making a few reel cases, too. It quickly became too much for me by myself, trying to divide my time between the rod work & the accessories, so I enlisted the help of my dad to help with the accessories. He is very good at this & is not without knowledge & skill in making things like these.

With his help I'm able to have enough time to work on rods & make some accessories, too. So we work together to produce these leather fly wallets, canvas or leather reel cases, leather leader wallets, traditional fishing bags, mini fly wallets, rod bags, & rod tubes. We have even more ideas in the works, too.

So please take a few short moments (it's actually two minuets long) to watch this short video highlighting the accessories we make. As always, should you have any questions about any of them, please feel free to contact me. Thanks for watching.

Custom Rod Bags

2/9/2015

A rod bag is something most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. A good rod bag is important though, & does merit some consideration. A rod bag should both look good – adding to the aesthetics of your rod - & protect the rod inside. Mass-produced rod bags are bulky, aren't custom fit to your individual rod, they don’t protect the rod very well, & you are limited in your choice of colors. The bags made in my shop are vastly superior.

These bags feature a top flap. This adds extra protection for the delicate tip-top sections when the rod is placed in the bag with the ferrules down at the bottom. A hanging loop is placed at the top of the bag which allows you to dry the rod in the bag & also makes pulling the bag out of the tube easier.

The pocket openings of these bags are gone over with a very heavy seam stitch. It’s at these openings that any rod bag sees the most wear. This heavy seam stitch protects the openings of the pockets, extending the life of the bag. Cheaper, mass-produced rod bags are only single stitched, usually with a bias tape around the seams. The bags from my shop are sewed to last a lifetime.

Here below, is a photo of a mass-produced rod bag. Compare it to my rod bags pictured above & see the difference.

Do you see that biased tape running along each seam? That's a manufacturing shortcut made to reduce their costs & time. There are no shortcuts taken in the making of my rod bags. Over time, with use & wear, that biased tape & all those seams will come loose, because the materials are of lesser quality & everything on this bag is single stitched only.....for shame!!

...And that bag's closure?!!? You have to tie it closed with those strings - guaranteed to pinch & bend the delicate tip of your fly rod.

When you consider that the rod bags made in my shop sell for about the same price as the poorly made mass-produced bags, I think it's easy to see which bag you'd want to store your rod in.

My bags are available in brown, green, blue, red, tan, or any color you want. Plus each rod bag features a decorative embellishment stitch along the length of each pocket. The color of this stitch can be made work with the aesthetics of your fly rod, for example – to match the color of the wraps on your rod, or the tipping wraps, or maybe the color of the wood in the reel seat. It’s these small details that can really add to the overall quality of your entire outfit.

Don't settle for a lesser bag. Please visit the Accessories page to learn more about these bags or contact me if you have any questions. Let's put your fly rod in the bag it deserves.

Keeping Your Hooks Sharp

2/6/2015

One of the biggest things that can make you miss strikes is a dull fly hook. It's a pretty common condition, too - especially with nymphs that bounce along the bottom hitting rocks, stones, logs, etc. With a dull hook, you're more likely to get a rejection from the fish because it won't stick in their mouth.

Below is a video of everybody's favorite fishing teacher Lefty Kreh talking about this very subject. He shows us a good way to sharpen your hook point - & yes, there is some technique to it. A hook point not properly sharpened will leave a burr on the end. If you do that, you might as well put a cork on the point because it's not going to set in the fish's mouth. Here then, let's listen & watch Lefty explain:

More Accessories On The Way

2/3/2015

Well, now that the rush of the Holidays are behind us, I hope you're all staying warm. As the snow has been stacking up here, Dad & I have been working on replenishing our stock of accessories. As you may know, we work together on these accessories - designing & making them all in the shop - & we're pretty proud of them.

Our stock of leather, thread, snaps, & other materials has been (or in some cases, soon will be) replenished & now we're putting them to use setting to work to make a bunch of the wallets, bags, & cases we offer.

Recently we were able to get some of the very popular mini fly wallets completed. These little wallets are pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

They're small enough to fit in your shirt pocket, yet big enough to hold a good number of wet, nymph, & smaller streamer flies. They have 4 pages of felt to hold all your most-used flies & have a D-ring & a grommet hole to hang the wallet by a lanyard, or anything else you can think of.

In fact, these little wallets are so convenient that they're perfect for a fishing guide, or anybody who's needing quick & easy access to their flies.

I've also found that by hanging them from your vest or lanyard while they're open they make a really nice fly drying patch, too!

These mini wallets, like the regular sized fly wallets, are available in both canvas & leather.

Soon we'll be into making some more regular fly wallets, leader wallets, & some fishing bags as well. So please keep checking this website to see what is available with no waiting. Of course, if you want a particular color, etc that we haven't got around to re-stocking (or if you want a custom color) of any of our accessories, please just contact me & we'll get to work on it for you.

You can read more about all our shop-made accessories, & see what is currently in stock, over at the Accessories page.

Adjusting Bamboo Fly Rod Tapers

2/2/2015

I get asked from time to time if I could take a particular rod taper & adjust it for different characteristics. Of course the answer is yes - as any custom rod maker can do this.

For those of you who don't know what we mean by the words 'taper' as it applies to a bamboo rod - we mean the diameter of the rod along its length. Obviously, it will be thicker towards the butt end than at the tip. It's how the rod's diameter changes as you move up (or down) it that will dictate how the rod acts & feels. There are many ways to say this (some talk about mass of the rod, deflection points, etc), but to me the best way is to say that a rod's taper is the combination of it's diameter at a set of equal points along the rod's length.

So the taper is, essentially, the rod. Different tapers do different things & the combinations of tapers are endless. That's why there's so many different bamboo rods out there. Naturally, then, these tapers can be adjusted to slightly change the characteristics of the rod. It takes a lot of work & thought on the rod maker's part to do this, too. A lot of contemplation has to be done before you begin splitting cane, else you run the risk of making a rod unlike what you wanted.

This usually isn't a problem because there are a lot of tapers out there. It may take a little time & digging around, but a rod maker can usually find a taper that will do what a client wants their rod to do. Slight adjustments might have to be made, but otherwise this is the best way to go because there you're sticking to something that's been proven successful over time.

Often, someone might want a particular taper, but want the rod to be made for a different line weight than the taper they're after. In other words, they might love the feel of a Payne 98, for example, but rather than a 4 wt (as it was originally designed for) they'd prefer it for a 5 wt. Can this be done? Usually the answer is yes. A consistent change to the numbers, or diameters, in the rod's taper can allow you to do this.

Where we get into trouble is when we adjust the rod taper too much. True, the diameters in a taper have a relationship with one another, but when you start making a rod a lot smaller or larger than it was originally designed for you begin to run into problems where the rod will not act in a predictable way. In theory it should work, but my experience tells me that when you start jumping a taper 3 or 4 line weights, bad things can happen. The rod you get is nothing like what you expected.

There are many reasons for this & the biggest, I think, is the bamboo itself. If you're making bamboo strips that are very large, the material becomes hard to handle - i.e. it will fight you & won't wont to cooperate with you. It's very difficult, for example, to heat straighten a very thick piece of bamboo. That's why you see that some of the largest bamboo salmon rods are 'double-built', meaning there's a smaller rod inside that larger outer one. When you get down to the smallest of rods you begin to have a rod that's not really practical to fish with.

So changes can be made to a taper, but we want to keep it within reasonable limits. Figure a decent rod maker can make a rod to within tolerances of say .002" to .010" or there-abouts. Stretching a taper too far out of it's original size can make it even harder to stay within tolerances & it becomes an unpredictable project. It's always better to get as close to what you want with a proven taper.

Measuring the taper of a bamboo strip with a micrometer

the pliant rod:

Trout Stocking In Pennsylvania

Trout Painting by Edward A Page

Old Herter's Fly Line

Fly Fishing Tricks of The Trade

Accessories Video

Custom Rod Bags

Keeping Your Hooks Sharp

More Accessories On The Way

Adjusting Bamboo Fly Rod Tapers

The Pliant Rod

leather accessories

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