For those who’ve always wanted to dip their toe into the rod building waters, starting with a blem rod blank can take a bit of sting out of the cost outlays for your first rod or two. I built my first few rods using Sage blew blanks bought out of a giant barrel on the floor of my favorite fly shop shop at the time in SLC years ago; they were a literal fraction of the cost of a perfect new blank and all had cosmetic blemishes so minor they were always hard to see, and the rods performed beautifully.
One of those early rod builds still lies at the bottom of the Snake River in GTNP, bounced out of the raft as a friend using it for the day fumbled in the cooler for another beer; they other two are still in use in the collection today.
EPIC has just announced this morning their annual Blem Sale – look over the options and perhaps it’s time to pull the trigger and build that first / next rod for your arsenal. Btw, not a paid advertisement, just a public service announcement.
