Jeff, you received some great advice from your buddies. Sorry, that I did not get to you when you contacted me… as my son said, we were without internet service while at the Fargo and Sioux Falls Sportshows.

As we talked last night, you will have built for you the 63MXF vertical jig rod. It will be on St. Croix’s new just released, Legend Tournament series blank. What a sweet rod this will be! We were fortunate to have one of the very first rod blanks to test about 18 months ago… have fished it a lot and found it to do everything and more that it is advertised to do. Very responsive and extremely sensitive.

We will build your rod to your exact specifications as we discussed. Hand and arm measurements are important so we get the diameter and length of handle just right are our specialty. Then we’ll add a custom shaped burl cork fore and rear grip, treated with our special sealer to make it feel like a glove in your hand! A stabilized burl wood reel seat insert lathe turned and bored to the exact diameter of the blank complete the handle section. Your rod will be balanced for your reel too! Fuji Alconite guides in the equal angle system round out the business section of the rod, making for one very special, and exceedingly sensitive rod… just for you.

LakeLady Custom Rods is proud to be a sponsor of the Walleye Masters Institute, our second year of sponsorship! Another LakeLady Custom rod will be given away next weekend at the Sioux Falls WMI 2005 seminar.

Kris Kristufek

Professional Rod Builder

LakeLady Custom Rods

Rod building can be a lot of fun and a rewarding hobby as well. There are a host of sources of information on the web to check out too.

Another suggesstion is to take a rod building class from an experienced certified instructor. There will be such a class at Sportsman’s Warehouse in St. Cloud, MN the weekend of June 20, 2003. Space will be limited. Call Jeremy the fishing department manager at 320-656-0600 to get on the list, or you can private email me at [email protected] for more info.

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Custom Rods

Thanks LundgEYE for the kind words. I too enjoyed our visit in my rod shop last week. Wish we’d had more time to look at some other things I’m doing with these fishing tools!

This 15′ Monster River Troller is realy something as you discovered. But it works and works like a finely tuned shad rap. The tip section is so soft that every “twitch” is clearly visable, yet powerful enough to set the hook with ease. The mid section starts to load up with power almost instantly, transfering the energy down to the butt sections, where there is plenty of “beef” to haul in nearly anything that swims in the river.

My son & I were testing this rod last summer in Pool 4, a rather lazy hot July afternoon, when something took the bait and headed for the Gulf, like it was dinner time! About a half hour later we got this ugly 28# foul hooked carp up to the boat. Somewhere we have a picture to prove it too! A battle royal, but what fun. The rod performed just like I thought it would …. flawlessly. And yes, we both held the rod during the fight with just one finger under the reel against the trigger. I would not have believed this could happen, but it does.

It is all in the set up of the rod. Built in performance designed to do a very specific job. The President of one of the major trolling board companies is salivating over this rod and what it will do, without the use of his boards. No more tangles, easy to set up and fish, simple to land a catch and on and on. Think we have something here for the guys that fish close to the rip rap or wing dams and want to save their lower units, make sharp turns and keep fishing all day long.

If there is a problem with this current rod it is the cost. There are only 2 blanks in the world that will do the job. One of them (the blank) I would not even bring into this country. But there may be an alternative.

We are just about complete with a more affordable version, using a different blank that I think will perform just fine, with some subtle difference, that only will be known when fishing booth rods side-by-side. The new rod will not be as easy to transport, as it is 2 piece vs. 4. It has a large butt section, which will dampen the sensitivity some, but at the end of the day, more affordable for more trollers.

If this weather straightens out, we’ll have both of these monsters down on the river very soon. We will look like ocean tollers with a nealy 40 foot spread going up stream, and lines back about 150 to 175 feet. Stand back…. the LakeLady Fishing Team will be in control! It’s 15 below here this morning, and I’m ready to go!

btw. LakeLady Custom Rods will be at the Sioux Empire Sportsman’s Show this weekend in Sioux Falls, SD. Both River Trolling rods will be on display in our booth. Come on down and experience the difference.

See you on the River!

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Custom Rods

The St. Cloud Civic Center is downtown St. Cloud, next to the River…. what a concidence!

Take the Hwy 15 exit off I-94 to St. Germain St. turn right to downtown. Can’t miss it.

Looking forward to seeing you!

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Rods

We will be at this weekends St. Cloud Sportsman’s Show at the Civic Center. Of course the 15 foot monster River Trollling Rod will be in our booth to touch and feel. Look for the big bass chasing the frog way up in the air!

We’re also going to be in Sioux Falls at the Sioux Empire Sportsmans show March 6-9.

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Custom Rods

Steve, the Brainerd Lakes Area will be just great in July. There are a host of fine resorts in the area. Some of them very large like Maddens, Craguns, Grandview, etc. Others smaller and more intimate.

Breezy Point Resort has it all. Small enough to be friendly, but large enough to offer what ever you need. Besides it is on Pelican Lake, which is chock full of nice ‘eyes. Call’em at 1-800-432-3777.

Need a custom rod to take her fishing with? We can fix you up!

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Custom Rods

NKT, try offsetting the stripper guide maybe 10-15 degrees than get to the 180 axis in 4 guides. Critical….

Kris

Hoggie, thanks for the very nice comments. We had a blast at the Walleye/Bass Expo last weekend. Wore me out showing off that monster 15 footer all weekend. Had a great show and lots of very positive comments about not only the 15 foot river trolling rod, but all the rods we build.

There is nothing really exceptional or new about the way the guides are wraped in a spiral around this rod. This is the way we do it on all of our casting rods. The Roberts Wrap or Spiral Wrap as some call it, was developed by a rod builder in Kansas about 50 years ago. Wish I had done it though! What it does is stabilize the rod so it “locks” in place and will not torque or twist when fighting a fish. One can litterally balance this huge long rod with one finger and fight a fish! Yes…. I’ve done it, seen it done and a 28 pounder in the boat too! Think you were holding on with one finger too …right?

Rod manufacturuers simply cannot afford the time to put a rod like this together. Only custom builders can take the time necessary to get it set up correctly on the spine of each section (this is a 4 piece rod) and then be certain that the entire rod is spined correctly. We also add likely more guides to our rods than others for a very certain reason….. increased sensitivity. We put 19 guides plus a tip top on this tool. There is a lot of physicis that go into rod building other than just twisting some thread around the blank, stringing up some line and going fishing. We build fish fighting tools, individually, one-at-a-time , for a specific purpose.

My son is going to post some pictures of this rod and a great fisherman holding it at the Expo. Hopefully he’ll get it up this evening or certainly tommorrow for sure.

For those of you that did not have the opportunity to come to Canterbury last weekend, come see us and our work. We’d be honored!

Kris Kristufek

LakeLady Custom Rods

The effective spine is the strong spine, where the blank “jumps” in the 90 degree flexed position. It is difficult to twist the blank with your fingers …. you just gotta try it to find the effective spine. Once you do, the rest is history. You’ll never, ever, buy a rod off the rack without finding it. Believe me, most manufacutured rods are not built correctly. That is whole another story too!…. Now, having said that, there is not a bad rod built…. some are just simply better than others…. all of them will assist in catching fish. I certainly do not want to create bad ill will amongst fishing rod companies, that is simply not my point. They have a job to do, and do it well, they just can afford to take the time to do it right, EVERY TIME!

Sooo, the effective spine is where the rod being flexed, jumps to its spine, and “locks in”. Look at the blank…. what does it look like…. is it in the fishing fighting position or the casting postion? what is more important to you? Fly fisherman are way different that bass or muskie fisherman …. jig fisherman …. live bait…. trolling…. get the picture.

Good luck in the shop…. you will learn a ton by just trying out various things. I very good friend and mentor of mine says all the time… “I don’t know if it is the only way , but it works for me every time”.

Tight wraps,

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Custom Rods
http://www.lakeladyrods.com

It is a lot easier to show than to tell how to do this wrap.

The first step is to find the spine where the blank “locks in”. There are several ways of doing this, most all of them work just fine. Be certain that you find the effective spine and not the weak spine.

The first guide must be placed where the line will freely flow without “bunching”. The entire guide ring should be used as the line moves through it. Most casting blanks will allow this guide to be in the 19″ range from the spool.

Basically start just like you always would at the 0 axis point. With some reels we might move the first guide off center maybe 10 degrees or so, the 2nd at about 60 degrees, the 3rd at about 120 degrees and the 4th at 180 degrees. It is critical that all guides be alingned so that the line from the reel to the 180 degree axis is a straight line. Anything less is a problem and the physics of the wrap will not perform as advertisied. Just work with it a bit and you will see when it is all lined up. From the 4th guide to the tip-top use the smallest guides (I always use #8 low frame “J” fly guides) or smaller. Add another problem to this by doing the Morton equal angle and the Fuji concept guide system to the tip-top. This may open a whole can of worms for the novice at this point. See I told you up front it is easier to show than to tell!

Another question that comes up is which way to spiral around the rod …. clockwise or counter clockwise. That answer is easy …. The rod does not care!

Only custom builders can afford the time it takes to set up the rod blank correctly for the sprial wrap. Tweaking is the key, it takes a lot of time to get it right. The manufacturers simply cannot afford that amount of time.

My son is trying to get one of the Roberts/Spiral wrap pictures posted here. Taking a picture of a rod and trying to show everything is nearly impossible and keep it all in focus.

Come see us at the Walleye Expo next weekend at Canterbury Park. We’d be happy to help you out.

Kris Kristufek

The sprial wrap or Roberts Wrap is not new. It was developed by a rod builder by the name of Roberts in Kansas City in the ’50’s. On the west coast it is known as the “acid wrap”, because it looks like the builder was on a trip when he wraped his blank. Actually the wrap is not difficult to accomplish, and realy does stabilize a casting rod, eliminates torque and increases casting distance and accuracy.

We will have a couple of spiral wraped rods at the Walleye Expo and Canterbury Park the weekend of 1/31.

Kris Kristufek

Just got back for the Rod Guild show in Nashville. Saw all the new stuff for rod builders … my head is still hurting!

Justin is right-on with his comments about handles, angles and so on. Clearly there is a lot more to rods and the physics of them and how they perform than just “looks”. Guides even the number of guides and thier placement on the blank, spine and its relationship to the blank, handles, even the adhesives we use all contribute to the ultimate feel of the rod.

Only a custom rod builder with hundreds of rods built can really prepare the perfect rod for a paticular situation. Certainly there is a great deal more to building a rod, than just “shaking” or bending the rod to determine its action and power.

Custom rods are suprisingly affordable and each one is created to suit individual fishing styles.

Check us out at the upcoming Walleye Expo at Canterbury Park in Shakopee Jan. 31- Feb. 2. We’ll be in booth #33 on the second floor.

Kris Kristufek
LakeLady Custom Rods

Must be one of those 15 foot acid spiral wrapped trollers!