Going to give it a go & hope to have my Batson Forecast 905-4 up & running by the 1st of May.

Its the least expensive of Batson's fly blanks so it's good build for a rookie like me. I have the four pc. blank & the cork, I went w/ a full wells grip as I like that style & a small fighting butt. The blank is a pretty shade of dark blue & I'm thinking of using all black or darker nickel for the furnishings.

Wraps are going to be dark as well, mostly black with perhaps metallic pewter or metallic silver/blue accents.

I'll post up some pics as I go at it & then some hero-shots when its done & in action.



c/22

sigh..... I'll pull out the rod building equipment,... again.

Nice little blank to build your first bug rod on. I build on the same blank for my brother in law. It's a nice little medium/fast blank. You'll like it.

Picked up a pair of gloss black ALPS shooting guides & some gloss black single foot snake guides & tip top @ DCR shop in T-town this afternoon. And then reamed the cork grip & fitted the little fighting butt.

Have my wrapping thread colors picked out, & a hook-keeper and winding check so now I just need to settle on which reel seat I want & the build is on.


c/22

I'll assume that since you posted, you're inviting comment. Forecast blanks are fine from what I've seen, and I have one in the mini-Spey catagory, 11' 6".

Why the fighting butt on a 5 wt? IMO a good rod build should express "understated elegance." A fighting butt on anything under a 7 wt exclaims, "I don't know schit!" What are you going to catch on your 5 wt, whales? A fighting butt on that rod won't say anything positive about you, excepting positively negative.

Negative also on the hook keeper. They make no fukkin' sense on most fly rods, and at worst occasionally get in the way. When fishing a floating line, you have a leader 9' or longer. Reel in to put the fly in the keeper and put a 180* bend in your leader butt section. Not only classless, but now you've just made a perfectly good leader less functional. When I reel in I always leave a bit of fly line sticking out the tip top and bring a length of the finer leader section around the reel foot and hook my fly on the stripping guide or one of the snake guides if it's a real long leader.

The dark nickel silver reel seat fitting look smashing on that blank color, and a maple wood insert is a cool contrast, and less common than the walnut and cocobolo.

Have fun building and fishing!

Sg

Brad,

I like my Forecast speys and singlehanders.

Having built more than a few of the same model you're starting out on I will second salmo's sentiments on the fighting butt and hook keeper, weighting and worthless.
Being a 5 wt would suggest (and dictate), that you'd want to keep things as light and tight as possible?

Although I think the blue rods look sharpest when finished with chrome/nickel components, the black strippers and single foot guides you picked up from Don are great.
For a lightweight stealth mode build pair them with black size 7 Channel Lock reel seat and size A, color #272 thread.

Tight wraps.

BB,
I'd skip the fighting butt on a five wt as well.

Salmo,
I tend to agree with you regarding fighting butts only for 7 wts and above. There are a lot of great salty 6's on the market that work great on for a variety of species.
Off the beaches here you just might hook a whale........of a king or coho.
They come in pretty handy for those.

C/22 - Not to late to toss the fighting but. That's OK. I can use it on my 6wt beach rod for when I catch whales at Lincoln Park.

I'm going to keep the little fighting butt, just like the look of it. Going to incorporate the hook keeper too.

I know the classic 5 wt is light & tight with a tapered half wells grip w/ a burl insert on the reel seat. Not 4 me this time out.

Mines going to be a little different, I'm going to make it how I envisioned it, it will get fished more that way.....



c/22

Thanks Joe, I'll check out that reel seat & thread color.


c/22

Chrome -
One of the joys of building your own rods is the ability to "customize" the rod to fit your needs/wants.

If you like the idea of a fighting butt on your new 5 weight go for!!

Makes no difference whether the rest of us would us it or not - it is your rod.

I'm sure it will supply you with many hours of enjoyment.

Curt

I like the fighting butt on two handed rods. I have one on a 4wt Echo switch and dig it. For a 9ft 5wt I can't see the reason. I bet you $20 you'll be sawing that off in a couple months.

Help! This 14" troutski is giving me trouble!

I'll take that bet, I paid $8.75 for this little corksucker so its a gonna get rod bonded up real tight.


c/22

Once you get your 20 bucks from Menalaus22 you'll be ahead 11.25.

You'll have fun building it.