During my career in custom fly rod building, I have seen some of the strangest and ill conceived custom builds that will boggle the imagination. Heck, even some of them have been mine. I have to admit that I’ve made all of the mistakes that I will be discussing in this article; some only once, some more.

I organize rod building into three categories; Building The Rod, Wrapping The Rod and Finishing The Rod. I have selected one or more of the most common mistakes in each of these rod building areas. This article is to help you avoid this problems and therefore eliminating some of the mistakes I’ve made in the past. I have also provided some advice on how to fix and help you avoid these pesky annoyances.