Fishing rods renewed!

I confess that I'm a practical sports fisherman.  I like to eat salmon, so I try and catch some.  Smoked king salmon is probably my favorite food - assuming that I've done it right.  Or, I should say that smoked king salmon right out of the smoker is definitely my favorite food: warm from the smoker, moist flesh, salty enough but not too salty, and the taste of the KING!

Anyway, any self respecting sports fisherman would be embarrassed to use my fishing rods and gear.  But they catch, so I don't worry about it much.  Finally, though, one rod had only two eyes left and one rod didn't have a tip or a second eye.  It's kind of hard to use fishing rods like that, so it was time to fix them.

And that's where YouTube comes in handy!  So far, I have never failed to find "how-to" videos on the internet somewhere. There are quite a few videos about, as I learned to call them, "rod guides."  I always thought they were little fishing eyes!

Here is the old stuff.  A rod guide is broken in the back of the photo.  In the front is a rod tip.   I can be kind of impatient, so after I followed the video instructions to use a lighter to warm up the rod tip and it didn't come off with a pair of pliers, I used my trusty propane torch.  WOW.  That thing shot right off and would have killed me if I was in front of it.  So much for not following instructions - again.

The rod tip was easy to put on - put a little warmed up hot glue in it and shove it on (of course making sure eyes/guides are all lined up.

Yep, there she is!  I know, doesn't quite look like the fishing rods in the store, huh?  But I'm pretty doggone sure that it will hold up as long as the old ones did.  With a couple tricks to start and finish that you'll have to look up on youtube, you just hold the thread and turn the rod with your other hand.  Slick!  Then you put some epoxy over it.

They've held fine so far after 6 hours of fishing or so.  And I feel good that I kept my two rods out of the landfill and I didn't have to buy new ones!!!!