The image you see above illustrates one of the developments in my shop that I am most excited about; the four strip spliced joint rod. In the photograph you see my special model 225 rod. Notice the new splice clips I have designed to protect the thin end of the splice when not in use, as well as the rod bag pocket to house these splice clips when the rod is taped together being fished. The splice takes the place of ferrules and gives a way of joining multi-piece rods without the added weight of metal ferrules. It also has the advantage when at a fishing camp of being able to leave the rod set up for a week or more without worry about the ferrules binding and being difficult to get apart.

Of course the Sharpes company of Aberdeen, Scotland made a lot of spliced joint rods in the last century, but they were all six strip rods and primarily two handed salmon rods. It turns out that the four strip, square section rod is ideally suited to the splice, minimizing the large swells required on a six strip rod. I built my first spliced joint rod in the early to mid 1990's really on a whim, throwing together a couple of extra rod sections I had around the shop. I used a splicing block borrowed from my ex shop-mate Mario Wojnicki which he used when doing splices for rod repairs, cutting the necessary angle with hand planes. I found that the resulting 7'5" for #3 line rod was very nice indeed and it soon made its way into the hands of my good friend Art Warner who has fished it extensively since then. He has always raved about that rod as have a number of his southern California fishing friends who have cast it and he has been after me to make more spliced joint rods.

It wasn't until I had made my move to Massachusetts that I made my next splice joint rod. In this instance it was the desire to make a rod not overly affected by exposure to salt water which was the impetus. I wanted a strong rod to fish tarpon in the Florida Keys and the spliced joint seemed like the ideal way to avoid a nickel silver ferrule. I made two rods, one a bit stronger than the other and they were quite successful, though there were not many tarpon that first year I fished them. I did hook three tarpon on those rods, bringing two right up to the boat only to have the hook pull out, and the third breaking off going away.

I have been wanting to build a hollowbuilt quad that would have the same lightness and feel as the very successful 834-2df HB six strip rod which utilizes micro ferrules as a key part of its design. It would be impossible to use those light, super short ferrules on a quad, however, because there isn't enough purchase on the bamboo to properly square the ferrule. The realization came to me that I could minimize the ferrule weight in the quad even more effectively by using the spliced joint. The only extra weight would result from the necessity of making the splice from solid, rather than hollowbuilt bamboo! So in 2006 I built two 8'3" hollowbuilt quads, one a little lighter action than the other, but both with splices rather than ferrules, transcibing the taper from my hexagonal 834-2 into quad dimensions. The results were beyond what I had anticipated; the rods have a remarkable feeling of lightness and power and really feel like one piece rods. I tested them for a couple of days on the Henry's Fork of the Snake, fishing with my friends Nelson Ishiyama and Bruce Raskin; at the end of those two days' fishing, I felt a little like I had found the Holy Grail!

This winter (2007) I will be fine tuning this spliced joint design to get an 8'3" HB quad for #4 line right where I want it. My hope is that it will be at least as good as my six strip 834-2df HB, and maybe even surpass it.

My plan is to offer a limited number of rods with spliced joints each year or so, one model at a time as a special run. The first series was built last winter and is an evolved version of the original rod made in the 1990's. These rods also have some trick taper and hollowbuilding which influence their unique action. These rods have now all been sold, but look for the upcoming series of 8'3" rods for #4 line.