Fly fishers as a group, tend to be innovative and resourceful. Many extend their enjoyment of the regular season through the winter months by making flies, poppers, leaders, line baskets, landing nets, line racks, fly tying benches or anything else that may not be readily available commercially in the exact form they want.

Lately there has been a noticeable increase in home rod building, evidenced by the appearance of some mighty ornate and intricately wound fly rods on the stream. This is fine. As a rule they are beautiful and a source of pleasure and justifiable pride to their owners.

For several years this writer has augmented his income by building fly rods. Here are a few things learned along the way that may help other builders.

It started about 20 years ago when I became interested in nymph fishing. Before this I had used the dry fly for trout almost exclusively. Because of this, and because angling writers seemed to think that a rod satisfactory for dry fly fishing would work fine for presenting a nymph, my first attempts were made with dry fly gear. I also used dry fly techniques -false casting to extend line, fishing upstream, etc.

Eventually it became apparent that the less the nymph was in the air, the more fish I caught. You see, when fishing a nymph, once it is soaked, it should stay wet enough to sink immediately each time it is cast. Jerking the line to pull the fly under is bound to spook fish. In other words, the fly should be presented wet, and false casting dries it.

My casting style gradually changed. I began trying to extend line by shooting rather than false casting. This led to a growing realization that a dry fly rod designed to keep a fly moisture free and floating wasn't necessarily the best instrument for offering nymphs to wary southern Wisconsin brown trout. This in turn led to modification in the rod.

I found that, by using oversize guides, the line cast easier and shot out farther with less effort.

Experimenting with guide spacing revealed that as the distance between guides lengthened, line friction increased, and as the guides were spaced closer, line friction decreased and shooting ease and distance increased phenomenally. Evidently closer spacing of guides retarded line bellying and slap, by helping it slide in a straight line rather than sagging between guides.

A side benefit, that became evident later, was much longer guide life.

Of course it's possible to use so many guides that the rod action is adversely affected, but I have come to believe that the number of snake guides on most commercially produced rods can be doubled without noticeably changing the action.

The rod that evolved from this is built on an 8-1/2 foot, center-ferruled, fiberglass blank. The butt section has an extra large stripping guide and two number three snake guides. The tip has ten number three snake guides and a standard pear-shaped fly rod tip top. This is twice the number of guides customarily used and they are larger to boot.

The stripping guide is 29 inches from the reel seat butt, which is close enough so the caster can support loops of line close to it to release when shooting, and far enough forward so line can be hauled readily if needed while casting. The snake guide spacing gets progressively closer towards the top of the rod, and the last snake guide is three inches from the tip top.

This guide size and spacing fits an 8-1/2 foot rod using a number seven or number eight line. Shorter rods will use less guides of course, and longer ones more.

By using this guide spacing, a rod can be made that will, with the proper line, deliver a fly any normal fishing distance with a single short back cast and no false casting. You can retrieve through as much fishable water as you wish, then pick up and shoot the line back out without false casting and drying the fly. Or if dry fly fishing, you can still false cast as much as you want.

Regardless of spacing however, it's important to have the bottom guide on the tip section as close to the ferrule as practical to reduce line leverage at this point. Most in-service rod breakage occurs at the ferrule, and the closer the guide, the less leverage and likelihood of fracture,

Decorative thread wraps, especially spiral ones, are more vulnerable to fraying and tearing than close side by side winding, so they should never be used as functional winds. in other words, if you want to decorate a guide wind with a spiral wrap, make two separate winds. First place the regular wind over the guide foot, then crowd the spiral wind up to it. This will look like one continuous wrap, but if one of the spirals is broken in service, the guide will still be firmly attached.

While we are on the subject of guide winding, if you can get by without color fixative and use several coats of spar varnish alone, you will have guide winds that are virtually impregnable. Nothing penetrates and protects like old fashioned varnish. It means of course that you will have to settle for dark winds, but I have seen some mighty attractive rods with black guide windings.

Ferrule placement is critical to rod performance. Most fly rod blanks have two separate actions. One built into the tip, and another action for the butt and divided by the ferrule. Moving the ferrule upwards will speedup the tip and moving it toward the butt will slow the tip action, and speedup the butt. If you buy the blank unferruled, it's important to know where the manufacturer intended the ferrule to be placed. Also if you plan to make a one piece fly rod, you will probably have to cement a short piece from another blank inside where the ferrule ordinarily would be to get an acceptable action.

All rod blanks have one stiff side. This is called the blank's "spine". Fly rods shoot line best if the guides are installed directly opposite the spine. At any rate, be sure the guides aren't mounted to one side of the spine, because this wiII make the rod cast the line sideways.

Probably the easiest way to locate a blank's stiff side is to lean it against a table with the butt on the floor and the tip on the table edge. Using the palm of one hand and pressing down slightly, roll the blank back and forth. It will jump as the stiff side passes under your hands. Do this several times to be sure, then mark the spine. Following these tips will help you have a rod that, like the old timer's woodpile, (it warmed him twice) will be fun to make and a joy to use. AUTHOR'S NOTE: I now use graphite blanks and find they are effected much less by guide weight. For instance, my eight foot rods have fourteen snake guides. The action isn't changed and they shoot line even better.