Excellent Customer Service from Batson

Two weeks ago my wife and I were on the Snake fishing Smallmouth. I was using my 5 weight Switch Rod. (It’s a 10 ft., 8 in long 4 piece built on a Batson blank). After a lot of walking, bug slapping, and fly changes, I finally had them dialed in. I caught two nice Smallies in a row and then a few casts later I heard a sickening “crunch” noise. Broke my rod…..it just broke! I had built this rod and was very proud of how it turned out, it was beautiful. Nuts.

I contacted the manufacturer and they suggested I send the hole thing back. A few days later they said they had a replacement section for me. Good news! I really don’t think this was a manufacturing defect as I used this rod a lot last summer and it didn’t break then. I think I might have “Clousered” it. A Clouser Minnow is a weighted streamer fly with heavy lead or brass eyes. If you glonk your rod with that fly, it’s probably going to break it. It will do the same thing to your head!

The replacement parts showed up on Friday, I was able to move the guides from the broken piece to the new piece and get all the wrapping done this weekend. Thanks again to Batson for the great service and help getting this rod back in action. They stood behind their product and couldn’t have been nicer about it.

Rootski

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Good to hear of the good customer service, Batson has always been a stand up company for me to deal with.

As you know I have been building and repairing rods for years and the only time I have ever seen a rod blank break like that is when a guy wrapped the thread to tight around the guide, NOT saying that what happen to yours tho, for I know you have also builds for years.

Perhaps you did chipped the blank in that spot as you spoke about.

I thought about the thread wrap and that could be it. I also noticed that the foot of that guide wasn’t absolutely flat, the end was bent down slightly. It might have gotten bent when the rod was damaged, or it might have damaged the blank there and led to it’s failure. At any rate I straightened it out and polished the bottom smooth before mounting it on the new section of rod.

Good thought Steve. I’ve had a few break and couldn’t (at the time) figure out what happened. I’ll be checking for a bent foot in the future. jerr