Okay, let’s get the disclaimer out of the way: I build and sell a limited number of fiberglass trout rods of my own design every year. “Dilettante” is the term some folks apply to what I do, which isn’t entirely unfair, although I prefer “niche rod craftsman.” Whatever I’m called, if the rest of this column somehow feathers my spartan little glass-rod nest, that’s not my intention. Really.
What is news is that while most of the fly-rod world is focused on graphite, there are a dozen or so small-volume flyrod designer/builders and a few large rod companies working productively and successfully with fiberglass. How can this be? Didn’t everyone get word in the mid1970s that glass was dead? That it is too heavy, too slow, and somehow not suitable for making superior fly rods?
Well of course we did. And most of us building rods back then joined the throng that took fly-rod design into two areas it had never successfully entered: long, very light-line trout rods, such as the 9-foot 4weights and 5-weights that grace most anglers’ quivers today, and 9-to-10-foot single-handed steelhead, salmon, and saltwater rods that were 30 percent lighter than what was available in glass or bamboo for medium-to-heavy-weight lines.
That was truly a revolution, but it wasn’t an easy sell at first. Early graphite rods were frequently perceived as “too fast” or lacking in delicacy, “too brittle” and prone to unexplained breakage, or simply not sophisticated enough in design to please the real fly-fishing cognoscenti. There was truth in most of those claims, though some of those too-fast rods of 1978 would be considered too slow today. That all changed with time as angler expectations about rods evolved and, more significantly, because graphite was and is a marvelous material from which to build many kinds of fly rods.
By the early 1980s, as graphite of one kind or another took firm hold in rod-design shops and the minds of anglers looking for a magic bullet to turn them from duffers into major lip rippers, we pretty much forgot about fiberglass. Contemporary glass rod makers, and a growing number of anglers, will tell you that was a mistake. Well-designed fiberglass rods, in lengths from just under 7 feet to 8-1/2 feet or so, for line weights 3 through 6, hold their own against any other kind of rod as superior casting and fishing tools, particularly for fishing dry flies or lightly sunk nymphs at sensible distances.
Sweet Forgiveness
The reason for this high regard is fiberglass’s combination of suppleness and elasticity. Glass is heavier than graphite and nowhere near as stiff. It requires larger diameters to gain the requisite stiffness for a rod, and also stretches more under load before reaching the point at which it breaks. Pick up a 7-1/2-foot to 8-1/2-foot 5-weight Winston, Claudio, Scott, Hardy, Fisher, Powell, or Peak glass trout rod from the late 1970s. Cast it with the same line you’d fish with. See if it doesn’t handle beautifully at surprisingly close distances, but also stays stable out to 40 feet when you push it. Slow down your stroke a bit and float in a cast or two. Nice, isn’t it? Of course, the rod probably weighs a third to half an ounce more than a comparable contemporary graphite rod, but if you had a good breakfast, you’ll hardly notice. I’m betting you’ll come to similar conclusions if the rod is for a 3-weight or 4-weight line, or for a 6-weight.
Now have someone grab the end of the leader or attach it to the base of a bush or a bench or something. Come up on the rod as you would when striking a fish. Feel that flex as the rod increases pressure on the line? Compared with graphite, there’s a bigger window between a little pressure and a lot — something akin to having two turns of the knob on your reel between no drag and maximum as opposed to half a turn. It’s the same modulated connection to what’s on the end of the line that’s had many conventional bass anglers go to fiberglass for their crankbait sticks to avoid ripping treble hooks out of a fish’s mouth.
You can use that longer elastic window to your advantage when playing a fish.
Now lengthen line and, with a haul or two, see if you can reach out past 40 feet and still stay accurate. I’m guessing you can, though you may have to pay a bit more attention to the way the rod loads and unloads than with a stiffer stick. It’s no accident that beginners learn basic fly casting more easily with a stiff rod that requires simply a good speed-up-and-stop to propel the line. But you’re not a beginner, are you? You can cast a rod off the tip, or the mid, or the butt to accomplish different things. And with that glass rod you can probably even reach 60 or 70 feet. But why bother? That’s not where you’re likely to be casting to trout on most streams.
Other Vintage Glass Rods
Along with rods by the makers named earlier, there are a handful of other glass brands that while not the product of specialty craftsmen, are well worth a look. Fenwick, once the dominant brand in U.S. angling, built rods in the 1960s and 1970s designed by the renowned Jimmy Green that held their own with just about anything on the water. They’re a bit gaudy, with a large spiral wraps at the butt, and their grips seem a bit oversized, but most of them were capable of better performance than their owners could give them. The same goes with the glass rods by Fisher (who fabricated, but didn’t design blanks for Scientific Angler, Cortland, Hardy, and Winston), Phillipson (who made many rods for Orvis and L. L. Bean) and Lamiglas. Heddon and Garcia Conolon also sold some very nice glass models. The huge bargains of years past on the good ones have largely disappeared, but if you look around, you can still occasionally find good rods for less than $100, though you’ll be hard pressed to spend less than $350 on most Winstons, Claudios, and Scotts. As for Russ Peak glass rods, call your banker.
Not For Every Situation
Some glass junkies would say fiberglass is great for all rods, but that’s belief talking, not science. I’d argue that as glass rods exceed 8-1/2 feet in length and go much past a 7-weight line, they lose a lot of their lustre, thought that doesn’t mean they can’t be good rods. Because the longer rod itself is heavier and larger in diameter and because its slower flex/unflex during the cast creates a greater swing weight, the perceived weight of the rod increases as length and power increases. The very things you like with a light-line glass rod — suppleness and a sense of control along the length of the rod as it loaded and unloaded — start to work against you. Many of us, however, still use glass steelhead and salmon rods even though they require more effort over a long day — largely because we find them more forgiving when connected to large winter fish. I still fish glass 8-foot 9-inch 8-weights and 9-weights when I’m in a pram or skiff, but I won’t argue that they’re superior to graphite. Similarly, long casts and deep wading favor light, quick responding 9-1/2-foot or 10-foot graphite single-handers. That goes in spades for double-handed rods: glass (and bamboo) Spey rods exist, but they’re beasts, compared with what’s offered in graphite.
Finally, deep nymph fishing with indicators, where lightning-quick strikes are necessary, is another area where graphite has an edge. It’s simply quicker to respond and move the fly that critical half an inch, and it lends itself to the long rods that make indicator fishing easier. This isn’t to say you can’t fish glass with indicators, just that if you’re splitting hairs about what’s best, glass isn’t the way to go.
Used Glass Rods
So with those cautions, where does an angler look when searching for a fiberglass rod? Vintage glass by makers such as the ones I mentioned earlier are frequently handled by dealers in classic tackle, such as Jim Adams in Berkeley, (510) 849-1324, Carmine Lisella in New York, (845) 639 7630, and Bob Corsetti in New Hampshire, (603) 886 0411. They don’t have Web sites, but a phone call will get you on their mailing lists. Bob Selb’s Classic Flyfisherman in Pennsylvania (www.classicflyfisherman.com) and Bob Summers in Michigan (www.rwsummers.com) are a couple of other good sources, as are auction sites such as eBay. With the latter, it helps to know exactly what you want and what constitutes a reasonable price before you “win” something that surprises you.
Glass From the Big Guys
Cabela’s, Cortland, Hardy, Scott, and Thomas & Thomas are big-name companies that currently sell new fiberglass fly rods. Cabela’s CGR series are priced at $99.99, which makes them an exceptional value, though they don’t have either the finish level or the pedigree of other new glass rods. They range from a 5-foot 9-inch 3-weight to a 7-foot 6-inch 6-weight, all three-piece rods. The single CGR I cast — a 7-foot 5-weight — handled well on the short casts one would generally be making with such a rod. The dual-slideband reel seat didn’t seem very secure, but at that price, who’s complaining?
Cortland’s Diamondback Glass series is an offshore reworking of the company’s U.S.-made Diamond glass rods of a few years back that had a lot of glass fanatics babbling happily. There are half a dozen models for line weights 2, 3, and 4. They have handsome, glossy blanks and nice hardware. The 8-foot and 8-1/2-foot 3-piece 4-weights seemed impressive and reasonably priced at $299.
Hardy’s Glass series consists of five models, from a 5-foot 2-weight to an 8-foot 5-weight. They’re made from a composite of glass and graphite, but the feel is classic glass. The ones I tried were a little heavier-tipped than other glass rods on the market, but they handled in close very nicely. For between $325 and $425, you get Hardy good looks, a very workable slide-band reel seat, and an aluminum tube with a fabric cover.
Except for the graphite-mad decade between 1982 and 1992, the Scott Fly Rod Company has been building fine glass rods since the early 1970s. The yellow blanks, brown wraps, and internal ferrules of Scott’s new F2 series pick up the look and feel of the classic F-series rods from the company’s San Francisco days, though on somewhat faster tapers and rolled from s-glass instead of e-glass. Offered in four models, all three-piece, from 6 feet to 8 feet 2 inches for line weights 2 through 4, they’re sweet small-stream fishing tools, and the 8-foot 2-inch rod is a pretty nice all-around 4-weight. At $625 they’re not inexpensive, but their performance is up there with their cost.
Thomas & Thomas, now under new ownership after experiencing some troubling years, is again building the Heirloom series of glass rods developed by designer Tom Dorsey half a dozen years ago. With deep green blanks and rich nutmeg brown wraps, T&T’s 7-foot 6-inch models for 3-weight, 4-weight, and 5-weight lines, and 8-foot models for 4-weight and 5-weight lines are perhaps the most striking looking of any of the new glass rods. I thought the 7-1/2-foot 4-weight I cast would have been better with a 5-weight line, but I admit to liking a slightly overloaded feel. In any event, this is classic T&T workmanship for $675.
Glass From the Little Guys
How about the small rod shops and individual makers? There are the custom rod builders who begin with a production glass blank by someone else and give it a special look. Frequently the end product features marvelous craftsmanship — for example, the work of Jim Clarkson of Raptor Rod Works in Chico (http://www.raptorrodworks.com) or Shane Gray of Graywolf Rods in Michigan (http://www.graywolfrods.com). But the result is of a different order from a rod that’s designed and produced from the ground up by one person or a small company. (I’ll note here than John Rivera, a rod builder in the East Bay town of Rodeo, has started running advertisements in this magazine that mention fiberglass fly rods. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to examine his work, which seems to use the blanks of others, but you can visit his Web site at www.theflyrodcompany.com.)
A number of glass rods available today are built on proprietary tapers — that’s to say on mandrels whose changes in diameter along their length are there because the person who designed them has a reason for them to be there. They’re also the product of careful selection from among the many available glass materials and weaves and of unique glass patterns rolled on those unique mandrels. Fabricating the blanks entirely in-house would be the ideal next step, and a couple of small makers do just that. But investing in the equipment needed simply isn’t in the cards for many of us, nor is buying glass material in the large quantities that composite fabric makers require. Instead, many small glassrod designer/builders employ an outside fabricator who’s willing to do short runs and tolerate a picky customer. Some makers don’t reveal the name of the fabricator, some do. In either case, the design work at the core of the product is that of the maker, not the fabricator.
At the top of the list of glass rod makers are guys such as Tom Morgan and Mario Wojnicki. Tom owned the Winston Rod Company at one time, designed Winston’s famous Stalker series of glass rods, and invented the Morgan Hand Mill for bamboo building. Tom’s physical condition doesn’t allow him to cast or craft rods himself, but his decades of experience and a fine eye for evaluating a rod as it’s being cast, along with a cadre of fine anglers, casters, and craftsmen, including his partner Gerri Carlson, rodmaker Bill Blackburn, and friends such as Per Brandin, Bruce Richards, and Brant Oswald give him the hands and feedback he needs. Tom’s glass efforts are all two-piece e-glass with internal solid-glass ferrules in a dozen models from 6 feet 9 inches to 8 feet 6 inches for line weights 3 to 7 (www.troutrods.com/fiberglass.html). The blanks are a unique rich burgundy color, with a nickel silver check ring tip. They’re rolled for him by Kerry Burkheimer in Washington, no mean shakes at rodbuilding himself, and are available as blanks at $295 or as finished rods in handsome cloth sacks and burgundy-colored aluminum rod tube at $1,395. Delivery has been very slow because Tom is exceptionally picky, but folks lucky enough to get one have been delighted.
Mario Wojnicki is principally known and justly praised as a bamboo rod builder. But press him only a little and he’ll tell you he has an unrepentant love for fiberglass. He also builds a limited number of both progressive-action and “parabolic”-action e-glass fly rods in 14 different models for line weights 3 through 6 (www.mariowojnicki.com). Blanks are unsanded, yellow in color, with hand-fitted internal ferrules, clear wraps, wood seats, and nickel silver fittings. Most are three-piece rods, and many of his models are made from multiple longer blanks from which Mario cuts specific sections. Prices reflect how much work goes into them, starting at $795 and topping out at $1,150. You’ll likely wait quite a while for one of his rods, but it’s probably a better investment than a Treasury bond, not to mention being lots more effective on the water. Mario is also unique among the glass-rod fraternity in having another rod company, in this case Tiemco, the Japanese tackle giant, build rods of his design and with his name for sale in Japan. The current price for one of those rods, converted from yen to dollars, is $1,280.
James Green (no relation to Fenwick’s Jimmy Green) is another Bay Area rod maker who specializes in fiberglass and whose blanks are rolled on his own mandrels by a fabricator. I’d seen Green’s rods listed for sale, new, in Jim Adams’s catalog, but I’d not handled one until this year’s Pleasanton fly-fishing show. The guy does very good work. Made from either yellow or black e-glass, Green’s rods are unsanded, with internal ferrules. They feature exceptional cork work and a clean, spartan look that I like very much. Green told me he has long been a fan of Fenwick’s old one-piece glass rods, and the actions of his own rods reflect that: they’re progressive, but with firm tips that can still drive a line. When I asked him “Why glass?” his answer was to the point: “More forgiving than graphite, with better feel and shortrange castability.” Green, whose business has mostly grown through word of mouth, builds “about 30” different three-piece, four-piece, and five-piece models for line weights 2 through 6. He has no Web site, but his phone is (925) 330-5678. Prices are $525 for three-piece, $575 for four-piece, and $625 for five-piece models.
Mark Steffen, the principal at Steffen Brothers Fly Rods, has been in the rod business for the past 32 years, starting with graphite and expanding later into glass. His fiberglass rods have a strong, quiet following among glass aficionados and are fabricated from s-glass in his Flagstaff, Arizona, shop. Chestnut brown blanks are rolled as one piece, left unsanded, and then cut and ferruled into 62 different configurations of length, number of sections, and line weights. Finished rods, in 2-piece, 3-piece, and 4-piece models from 6 feet to 8 feet 6 inches are generally wrapped in a burgundy thread and have wood-insert aluminum reel seats. Unique among contemporary glass rod makers, Steffen offers a number of models for line weights 8 through 11 in 8-foot to 8-1/2-foot lengths. When I asked Mark why he made the heavy stuff, he laughed and said, “Well, it was a question of having some mandrels in a larger diameter and seeing an opportunity to expand my lineup. Demand hasn’t been huge, but the unidirectional s-glass I’m using keeps them reasonably light, and the folks who’ve bought them think they’re great.” Blanks cost between $135 and $200 and finished rods between $330 and $425, depending on the number of sections. Upgraded nickel silver reel seats add another $50.
Mike McFarland of Tyrone, Pennsylvania, started building rods in the early 1990s using blanks from fabricators such as Lamiglas. A couple of years ago, when Cortland was closing out the Diamondback rod plant in New Hampshire, McFarland saw an opportunity and purchased their rod-rolling equipment and mandrels. Since then, he’s been building his own blanks and making a wide range of high quality rods in both graphite and fiberglass. The glass rods in his Spruce Creek series are sanded, a handsome amber in color, with hand-fitted internal ferrules. They feature a soft, progressive action and are offered in two finish levels in lengths to 8 feet 9 inches for line weights 3 through 7 and in just about any number of sections you want. Stream Grade ($395) and Presentation Grade ($675) McFarlands are built on the same blanks ($185), but differ in the quality and expense of components and level of finish: Presentation Grade rods get highly figured wood, nickel silver fittings, agate strippers, flawless cork, and brass-capped aluminum cases. Request a rod with more than three sections in either of these series and the price goes up by $25 a section. McFarland also builds Dry Fly and Parabolic glass models in 7-foot to 8-foot lengths for 4weight and 5-weight lines. The Dry Fly models are built on an aggressive, tip-action taper, while the Parabolic models feature strong tips and mids that flex the rod well down into the butt. Both series cost $445 in Stream Grade and $725 in Presentation Grade. McFarland’s Web site is http://mcfarlandrods.com.
Glass From Japan
If you’re willing to do some foreign exchange, a handful of fine glass rod makers in Japan specialize in rods for that country’s small mountain streams and whose craftsmanship is superb.
Tiemco, one of Japan’s largest tackle companies, builds the Wojnicki glass series mentioned earlier, but it also markets a couple of other lines of glass rods under the Glass Master brand. My friend Tomonori Higashi, for many years the editor of Fly Fisherman magazine Japan, speaks highly of the Glass Master Naoto Shibuya model, a 7-foot 9-inch 5-piece 3-weight rod that Shibuya, a long-tippet specialist, designed as the ideal action for finesse flyfishing in Japan. You can check it out at htt p://www.tiemco .jp/pr oject/ fishing_catalog/info_fly?brand=10&category=16&kind=999&commodity_code=1 701 (in Japanese).
Another friend recently showed off an 8-foot 5-weight three-piece glass rod from Kabuto Rods in Hokkaido that I liked a lot. It was an eye-catcher with a translucent lemon-yellow blank, translucent wraps, white internal ferrules, and a stacked bamboo-wood-insert reel seat. More than just eye candy, it was a delight to cast, though it would have felt better in hand with a lighter piece of wood for the seat. It’s priced at $595, and you’ll pay $50 or so to get it shipped. The Web site is www.kabutorods.com (in English).
Norie & Co. of Tokyo, who’s been in business for almost 40 years, offers three lines of glass rods, each with slightly different cosmetics and actions. The 7-foot Early Spring models in two-piece and fourpiece versions are a pale lemon yellow with matching wraps. The Oriface models are three-piece rods in a deep olive green color with brown wraps in lengths from 6 feet to 8 feet 6 inches for line weights 3 through 7. Sleeve models are deep brown with olive wraps and are offered in two-piece and four-piece versions from 7 feet to 8 feet for line weights 3/4 and 4/5. All three model lines are available as finished rods, blanks, and kits, and current prices run between Y29,000 and Y39,000 for rods, Y19,000 to Y23,000 for kits, and Y13,800 to Y14,800 for blanks. With the yen at .01225 to the dollar, that puts a finished rod at between $360 and $480, exclusive of shipping and customs. You can view Norie rods at http://norie.co.jp (in Japanese).
Glass on the Web
Finally, no article about glass fly rods would be complete without mentioning two Web sites that cater to glass junkies. The Fiberglass Flyrodders at flyrodders.com hosts discussion groups on everything from technical issues to collecting and fishing glass rods, has classified sections for buying and selling glass, and has a neat Wiki section on the history of many classic and contemporary glass rod makers. The blog at manifesto.blogspot.com promotes glass rods and builders and “includes interviews, press releases, gear reviews, photography, video along with frequent contests and gear giveaways.” Both are worth a look if you’re interested in glass.
Editor’s Note: Although Larry Kenney is reluctant to promote his own fiberglass fly rods in the “Gearhead” column, I believe it’s fair for me to correct the omission. So: L. Kenney Rodmaker builds two-dozen to three-dozen three-piece e-glass trout rods each year, rolled on mandrels and with glass patterns that Larry designed. They range from a 7-foot 3-inch 3-weight to an 8-foot 8-inch 7weight and cost between $550 and $620. You can contact Larry at lmkenney@earthlink.net.
Fibers and Resins
Fiberglass, developed in the late 1930s, found its way to tubular fishing rods in the 1950s. The original glass fibers were designated E for their use in electrical work where they served as insulators. S-glass, so named either for its structural uses or for its additional strength compared to e-glass, came out of military applications but began to see civilian applications in the late 1970s. That was right around the time graphite came into the picture, so s-glass got less hype than it would have had it come out ten years earlier. Compared to e-glass, s-glass has a higher tensile strength, a higher modulus, and greater abrasion resistance. It’s also significantly more expensive to produce, though not as expensive as graphite
E-glass was originally combined with either phenolic or polyester resins into the cloth that was wrapped around mandrels to make rods. Phenolic resins were stronger but problematic in that they weren’t compatible with colored pigments and produced occasional voids in the layup, not to mention nasty volatile gases during the cure. Polyesters solved the void/volatiles problems and could be colored but weren’t as strong a binding matrix for the glass fibers. Late 1970s s-glass prepregs, like almost all prepregs today, used newer, tougher epoxy resins that were an improvement over both phenolics and polyesters.
There’s considerable debate over which glass fiber makes better fly rods. Technical properties of the fibers seem to me less significant than the metrics suggest when combined in a prepreg with resin and rolled into a blank. S-glass is marginally lighter and stiffer, so less material can be used in a blank of given strength. E-glass is favored by some rod makers precisely for its slightly lower stiffness and marginally greater weight. But you won’t mistake any e-glass or s-glass rod for one made of graphite. Taper — the change in diameter along the length of the rod — is probably at least as important to rod performance as the glass material used.
Larry Kenney
