Building a Sword Fishing Rod- Part I- Selecting Components

[swordfish123]

Building a Sword Rod Part I: Selecting Components

Captain Stephen Altenbach

When I told Mike I was going to be building some sword rods, he asked me to write an article for the website, which I was more than happy to do. I hope ya’ll enjoy, and learn something! I would really appreciate any and all feedback. I recently started a little company called BlueWater Custom Rods LLC (mainly to get stuff cheaper with wholesale pricing) so I’m looking for business!

I really needed some good #50 rods to replace the ones I was previously fishing with. My old ones had small roller guides which would not accommodate large bimini knots or wind-on leaders. Also, they were too long for my taste and the components were bottom of the line. I started looking at big game rods, comparing components and types. I learned a great deal on this project, and gained a lot of great advice from other rod builders and experts from Biscayne Rods, Chaos Rods, J&M Rods, Scott with American Rod Co, Tek with Reel Pro Shop, Justin on the forum and others. Stand up fishing is a relatively new style, and the equipment which is helping anglers tackle giants without a chair is constantly evolving. This article will be one of a few that will take ya’ll through my entire rod building process.

The first step in choosing components came from deciding what species I was targeting. Obviously swordfish were top of the list, but I also wanted these rods to handle anything my Tiagra T-50WLRSA’s will (thanks Tek!), including fairly large Marlin. There are 4 main parts of a rod; the blank, the butt, the grip and the guides. The blank is by far the most user specific, and must be tailored to your needs.

After comparing many types, I decided on a Seeker TS55XHB 50-80 Extra Fast taper blank. The Blank has a softer tip which will help prevent pulled hooks while swording, and will also give the rod some bend with smaller fish. I did not want a broomstick which would only bend under the pressure of a #300 tuna. Also, I decided that the length of the rod should be 5’6”. I am a pretty short guy, and my old 6’ rods seemed a little hard to control at times. Some stand up rods are now being built under 5’. This is a little too extreme for my taste, and also is not practical because our boat has a large swim platform to maneuver around. The boat design, your height, arm length, harness style and more should all be considered when determining the length of the rod.

Now that I had decided on a blank, the guides were the next on my list. I knew I was going to be using Wind-On leaders so my choices were limited to the following:

 Aftco Wind-On Guides
 Stuart Large Roller Guides
 Winthrop Tool 50-130 Ball Bearing Guides

Aftco Wind-On guides are of course the standard, and they are certainly an excellent, lifetime guide. However, once I took a good look at the new Winthrop Tool guides, I was hooked. Each guide has two sealed ball bearings, a titanium roller, and has a great looking solid aluminum frame. Each guide has a 5/16 of an inch gap (enough to fit a #2 pencil) between the roller and frame, allowing adequate room for wind-ons over 700lbs. They are more costly, but I think it will be a good investment in the long run. You can check out these guides at www.winthroptool.com. Once I chose the style of guides, I had to decide on how many guides, and what size. After subtracting the length of the butt, grip and the tip top guide, I was left with about 33’’ of blank on which to place guides. For these rods I am using the following guides:

 #50-130 Stripper #SR2
 #50-130 Guide #R3-6
 #50-130 Aluminum Tip Top - Size 12

This hand picked set was perfect for my rods. Also, for those who prefer the Aftco style guides, Winthrop has just released a new set of guides called the Excel series. They offer Winthrop performance in a more standard Aftco design, but on steroids, and much more sleek. All Winthrop guides are available in Titanium, Gold, Platinum and Black. Also, for those who demand the very best, Winthrop offers guides with solid Titanium guide frames.

The next decision was what style butt to use. Of course, Aftco is standard. I had a hard time trying to decide between a straight butt and the newly popular short bent butts. Both have their pluses. Short bent butts are better for swords and tuna, but since marlin fight more on the surface, a bent butt puts the rod at a bad angle for stand up fishing. Finally I decided to go the extra step and use Aftco Storabutts with an extra straight butt. The Storabutt is a great product, and allows you to disconnect the butt from the reel seat, the same as you would detach your normal unibutt from the rod. This allows you to change from one butt to the other without taking your reel off. You can even change mid fight! (This is IGFA legal, so long as the angler makes the switch.) I went with an all black finish because Aftco’s gold is kind of orangey and clashes with the Tiagras.

Last but not least, the grip. In this area, you are really left with three choices, EVA, Hypalon and Leather. Since I take extra good care of my equipment, and these rods are going to be eye candy, I am using leather grips from Biscayne Rods. I discovered the huge debate between rod builders about grip lengths for stand up rods. Some say that grips don’t matter, since both hands should be on the reel in true stand up scenario. Others argue that grips should be up to 15” long. I split the difference. Eddie Carman of Biscayne Rod custom made me four of their famous leather grips in a 12” length in the appropriate diameter for my blank.

Now that I had all my components selected and ordered, the next step was to design the rod from butt to tip. This includes deciding on wrap patterns, spining the rod, sighting the guides, creating a weave pattern and much more.


Heres all the components, except for the guides, they have not yet arrived.



This shows the Storabutt reel seat without the butt attached. You can even flip the seat around and the reel will sit 2 inches closer to the grip.



Here is one grip that is near completion. It has already been attached, sanded, sealed, sanded again, wrapped, finished and wrapped again. Design threads will be added and then a final coat of finish will be applied.



That is an example of the custom thread art I can do. That wrap took over 3 hours.

[Mike]

Great article and even better work. I'd like to see one of those rods bent over

Send me your address for a free t-shirt.

[Verado06]

Good read. Thanks

[Whitewater]

One Note:
The AFTCO reel seats fit great with the Shimano reels. There are other brands of butts and seats that do not fit correctly. The feet on the Tiagras are small.

[Verado06]

I second the Aftco reel seats.

[swordfish123]

yes, they do fit nicely. I just wish Aftco would get away from that orangey gold they use. I guess they do match the internationals, but I konw a lot of people who are using other brands becuase the gold looks better. Fuji offers both colors, penn and tiagra gold, on their live bait reel seats.

black looks nice though. I will have enough gold on the rod when im done.

[Whitewater]

The short bent butts are great I use them on heavy tuna rods.
However they are only available in size 2. I was talking with the owner of Fishermans Outfitters in Gloucester MA. They can have the bigger ones machined into the shorter standups. I'm considering having a pair done.

[swordfish123]

Whitewater-- yes they are only available in a size 2, but the Aftco short bent's have hoods that will accept the feet of size 80 reels. I would think the butt itself would be strong enough for almost any non chair situation.

I dont think you'd wanna put a 130 on a standup rod, but thats just me!

[Whitewater]

In the NE the #2's are considered too small by many for the giant tuna. 80 size reels are OK, however the bent butts are also fished out of swivel base rod holders. On some of the fish large amounts of drag are applied and there are concerns that the butts won't stand up(50+lbs). It appears that with swords lighter drags are used, and the #2's are OK.

I have a pair of short #2's with Tiagra 80's and like them a lot for stand up. Not having caught any giants I cannot attest to their strength in the holder. I also have a pair of bent 4's with 80's and considering having them cut into shorts.

[edk]

Originally Posted by swordfish123

Building a Sword Rod Part I: Selecting Components

Winthrop has just released a new set of guides called the Excel series. They offer Winthrop performance in a more standard Aftco design, but on steroids, and much more sleek. All Winthrop guides are available in Titanium, Gold, Platinum and Black. Also, for those who demand the very best, Winthrop offers guides with solid Titanium guide frames.

Do you have a link to information on the Winthrop Excel guides? I did not see any mention of them on the Winthrop Tools web site. I'd like to know more about them.

Ed

[swordfish123]

I know that the Excel series is made more for stand up rods with a smaller tip size. The feet are narrower and were stretched out from the Classic series. They use the same ball bearings and have the same knot clearance. As with all Winthrop guides, each frame is machined out of solid aluminum bar. No welds or seams. The roller is solid titanium.

Heres two pictures that Fred of Winthrop sent me.




They are SWEET! I was just hooked on the old look though, thats why I went with the classic series.

[slam32b]

I know curved is better for higher drag settings but between 20-35lbs how much better would a short curved butt be than a straight one?

[swordfish123]

the reason for choosing a curved butt over a straight butt is mostly due to the angle at which the fish fight, more than how much drag there is on the fish.

if you you are fighting a tuna in a standup harness on a straight butt and the fish is straight down under the boat, you have to lift the rod much higher, which, if you are in a standup harness, causes the harness to ride up from "highsticking". to avoid this, you would have to let the drop straps out much further on the harness, so then hte reel is far away from your body, so you have less control over the rod. also, when the fish is going straight down, the curved butt gets the rod tip out over the gunnel better.

[stan massey]

Originally Posted by slam32b

I know curved is better for higher drag settings but between 20-35lbs how much better would a short curved butt be than a straight one?

I`f I can stick 2 cents worth in from across the pond, (I earn my living as a rod builder), it`s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I`ve never caught a sword but from reading this forum It seems a lot of the fight is down deep fairly close to the boat as opposed to say marlin that can fight high in the water some distance from the boat. With a deep fighting fish close in the short bent butt is ideal. The additional leverage for minimised effort gives the advantage to the angler but if the fish should choose to move away from the boat the lever and fulcrum effect that was in the anglers favour slowly moves to the fishes favour and thats where a straight butt would have the advantage. The alternative to dropping the pad straps would be to increase the butt length on the curved butt, i.e. move to a chair butt (UB4) which in turn negates the advantage if the fish is deep and close. Real chicken and egg. I`ve got some short curved Aftcos in stock 50# and having wide hoods they take and Everol 80w and an Inty 80 with no problem. The strength of the butt that some have mentioned I doubt is a factor with swords. I know the flesh is compatatively soft so the strike drag setting I assume is low, 15 - 20lb???

At such a setting even with the rod in a holder getting a sudden thump the 50# butts are more than capable. Once the rod is in the anglers hand / butt pad the point of leverage is above the reel position and the remainder of the curved butt below has all the pressure downwards offering little if any chance of across butt axis stresses.

Main downside of a curved butt is if the boat transom or gunwhales are high as on some charter boats this side of the pond. A curved butt in that scenario would be a distinct dis-advantage.

Stan.