As with many small business, this business is the culmination of a hobby gone wrong. Over the years I have enjoyed fishing, from a young boy at the trout pond, to catching my first steelhead as a high school student, to wondering about the ocean in a small boat chasing salmon, halibut and tuna. It was on one of those trips that a friend who suggested that I try building my own rods. He talked me into it and soon I had my first build under my belt. Let’s just say the holographic green metallic and purple color scheme was a bit over the top.
As I started fishing with my new rods, other friends saw them and really liked the workmanship and asked if I could build a rod for them. One lead to two and a few after that. At that point I had already upgraded a lot of my equipment and my thread collection had began to grow.
I knew there was no turning back when my wife insisted that I come up with a new storage place for my rods to show them off to friends and volunteered the entry hall in our home for a 32 rod custom rod rack. I guess it should have been a 64 rod rack, because there are still odds and ends scattered around the house.
To pay for that rack, I was asked to figure out how to incorporate wood into a modern fishing rod. Each rod builder always tries to come up with something new and innovative and at less than two years in the business I found myself getting my wood veneer technique published in Rod Maker magazine. A hobby that has truly become something else.