Here are two recent builds of mine. I have been so busy trying to get these finished and tying flys for pyramid that I am just glad they are both done and ready for the trip. First rod is a Sage One 9ft 5wt. I went simple on this rod. Mostly black on black with a bit of gold in the guides and the lemke reel seat(thanx Ron). The handle is a modified full wells and the reel seat insert is stabilized burl with Gold, Black, and grey dyes.

Photos are at this Gallery: [outthereflyfishing.com]

The Second Rod is a 9ft 7wt Batson RX7 blank. Also went with the black and gold guides on this one. The handle is once again a modified full wells grip with a fighting butt to match. The reel seat is an acrylic that is a mix of red, black, and grey. Wraps are black with red trim and a bit of gold on the ferrule wraps. This rod is going to a buddy of mines girlfriend who is going on the trip.

Photos are at this gallery: [outthereflyfishing.com]

I know I got some flack about putting the hook keeper in the middle of the rod before but my buddy requested it on this one. I still think it is more functional for fishing long leaders.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2015 01:55PM by Jimmy Crain Jr.

Your gonna get some flack about posting the pictures here too. instead of putting them in the photo section

Flack or not! They look nice!

I don't know why he should get flack about posting the pictures, I like to see them here.

Randolph, you may, but some of others do NOT>

Photos are intended to go onto the photo page where they remain in the database, are easy to find even years later and which don't reduce the bandwidth allocated for the forum portion of the this website.

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Not according to Randolph

Ron Weber

Hook keeper makes sense there as long as line slap doesn't result in it getting fankled on casts.
You certainly don't want to be hooking through a single foot minima guide.

Ron, What are you referring to as not according to me?

Rules say pictures go on the picture pages

Ron, all I said was that I liked seeing them. Please don't put words in my mouth.

Sorry I didn't know we couldn't put photos up on the fourm. Seems odd, but if thats the rules thats the rules. I will take them off.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2015 04:12PM by Tom Kirkman.

If you'll lookvabove at the header you'll see a photo tab. Register for the photo page then post all the photos you want.

Swampland,

I thought about doing that, but after looking at how many photos get added on average it doesn't look as though to may people check out that photo page. There has only been 6 photos added this week and 15 in the past two weeks. I would bet that even the folks that do decide to look at that page only do so once a month. And thats about how often I look at them, infact I haven't even bothered to create a user name for it yet because it just really isn't needed to look at photos. If I am looking to share information I want it accessible to all that may be interested. If I want to just post a photo for people to look at I can just throw it up on my instagram and have 50 people like it in the first couple of hours, not including the folks that look at it and don't like it. The other thing is a photo is just that, a photo. On a forum you should be able to share photos along with a back story of why the photo's are relevant. If I just posted those photos to the gallery you may not know what hardware I used or what blank for that matter.

It's the most popular rod building photo page on the internet. Always has been. Check the stats again. You might get "50 people to like it in the first hour" but after the first hour or so that's about it. On the photo page here, thousands and thousands will eventually see it.

You can add comments to any photo you post on the photo page in the comment box under the photo.

..........

The nice thing about the photo page here is that it serves as a complete database for thousands of rod building photos going back over a decade. If you are trying to find a photo from memory you can go to the page and search under the username or category and usually find it. With all the various facebook book and similar pages these days it's tough to remember where you saw something or have to wade through the interminable number of facebook posts on a page while the thing spins and loads and loads, mostly stuff you don't want to see. In the long run the photo page serves an important purpose and one day you might just be glad your photos are here in the "vault" and able to be called up fairly easily.

Plus the fact that you have to come here to link back to your instagram photos means you're not getting the traffic you think you are. Not if you have to come here to get it.

Jimmy,

I'll guarantee that if you post on your instagram page, I'll never see it. I check the photo page here daily and I bet there are lots of other builders that do also.

Steve Hartzell
Lake Conroe - Willis, Texas

Photo page stats:

Users - 4,085
Photos - 17,428
Comments - 37,944
Views - 31, 832,618

Note that last one - almost 32 million views.

But of course, whether people want to put their photos there is up to them. It really doesn't matter to me, although I'd prefer they not eat up the bandwidth on the forum here with photos.

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Ken,

The search function is nice, just don't type it in wrong because its going to take you another 20seconds to search again. As far as what I post here photo wise linking back to my instagram that is not the case. What I post here is for this audience only. That was my point if I just want it out there for anyone to see I can post it else where. If its something that I want to share with the rod building community I want to post it here.

Steve,

Thats my point, thats why I feel posting photos here is a good thing.

Tom,

The numbers I was referring to where how many new photos have been added. Not how many times photos have been looked at. 32million sounds at first like a great number of views. But once you crunch some numbers thats only 1826 views per photo. That means out of the 4085 registered users not even half of them look at each photo. That leads be to believe that most people on the forum that sign up for the photo page just don't use it. I would also guess that the amount of registered users that look at those photos is much less, since lets face it most of those views are from random Google searches. I have had 536 people view this post in just 3 days, that have a direct interest in it. That is great. But it would be better if they didn't have to be redirected to another site to see the photos. Lets face it its fun to hear about a rod build but its so much better to see it. I do understand the bandwidth thing its got to be expensive, its just my opinion that the site would be better for sharing photos directly in posts.

Jimmy,

Let's put things in perspective. How many rod builders do you think are out there?

Suppose it is truly 1800 unique views per image. That represents something like 10% of the rod builders who are actively building worldwide (~15k - 20k), unless numbers that Tom has put out over the years on rod builders have changed significantly. This is a craft pursued by the few, not by the many. Search around on this forum and you can dig up the numbers. Where could you put a fish picture that could reach 10% fishermen?

Sure, the photo page might be a little slow now. It goes through cycles. At times a pic won't be on the front page more than a day.

Joe