Hi Guys,

I'm building a coupla 8 weight hollow built bamboo rods for redfish in the saltwater/brackish water marshes of coastal Louisiana. Seems to me that a downlocking screw aluminum reel seat is the way to go. In days gone by Leonard , Dickerson, and many others used nice looking aluminum reel seats. I'm sure there are some really nice aluminum seats on the marker today. Trouble is, I know nothing about aluminum seats. Might any of you have suggestions for classy looking, yet quite functional, aluminum seats?

Thanks in advance,
Harry

Channel lock reel seat by Pack bay or the saltwater seats but these are up locking the D1 struble skeliton seats are nice but you would need some kind of insert that would hold up to Salt

Bob

Hi Harry, Jann's Netcraft has some great heavy duty aluminum fly rod reel seats. The come in black, natural or gold color. These are made for 7wt rods and up, you can pick up fighing butts for them also. Jann's is a class place to work with located right next to Toledo. There phone number is 1-800-638-2723 with a web site of www.jannsnetcraft.net.

REC has a champaigne colored aluminum saltwater reelseat on sale for $10 plus you can add on a couple of different fighting butts. I haven't used one but for the price I don't think you could go wrong and I think the champaigne color would look better with a cane rod. Here's the link: Saltwater reel seat

Ken

Thanks Bob -- I built a bamboo rod for the owner of PacBay. I'll give Bob a call and see what he has to say.

Boomaniac and Ken, thanks, I'll check out Jann's and REC. Just glancing, those REC seats don't look bad, and I like dealing with Dan and Alann.

Harry

Could you post the taper Harry? I think I should build a good salmon/steelhead rod that I can also take to do saltwater fishing when I visit my brother-inlaw on Cape Cod.

Ken

Sure Ken,

It's basically a Dickerson 8015 Guide Special, altered by increasing the taper slightly to make the action similar while hollow building. I first built this as a rod for silver salmon in Alaska, but my trip fell through. I have since used it primarily as proof that bamboo rods will cast a lot of line. I can easily cast an entire line with this rod, and really good distance casters can get the backing beyond the tip top.

I start both the butt and tip measurements at the large end

Butt Tip
0 .379 . 238
5 .379 .227
10 .379 .210
15 .360 .199
20 .345 .183
25 .328 .170
30 .312 .156
35 .297 .138
40 .277 .123
45 .258 .105
48 .253 .096

Obviously this rod requires a step down ferrule. The bottom 1/3 is hollowed to a wall thickness of .070, middle 1/3 to .060, and the tip to .050 almost all the way out.

The guide spacing I have used is:
Tiptop
4 1/4
9 7/16
15 1/4
21 1/8
28 3/8
35 3/8
42 5/8
51
59
68 1/2 #12 stripping guide (Mildrum, not agate)

Harry

Thanks

Ken

Hi Harry,
Struble has some nice looking aluminum seats.
Struble Mfg

Dewey

bellinger makes a good looking aluminum seat too.