Richard Isaacs
Senior Member & Supporter
Disclaimer to start!
I’m not responsible should you decide to carry out anything I describe in this post.
All will make sense as you read on.
So last year I bought 2 avenger 2000 rods both in sorry looking states.
I stripped and cut and spliced and built with the help of a well known builder and good friend to achieve something of greatness.
We came out of it with an avenger 2000 13/14ft hollow/spliced tip and I’ve been battering the life out of it since. With the spliced tip section It’s the most fantastic river trotting rod I own in terms of action, weight and capabilities.
This year I’ve done it again but in doing so I’ve taken a huge risk. A bold step and it’s not something i would recommend lightly.
I’m taking about serious modifications to a perfectly in tact, very rare and very expensive rod.
It’s no secret that I absolutely love the original free spirit float rods in 15ft. This year I’ve had some amazing achievements on them in terms of enormous barbel and I’ve gotten to know that blank probably better than most owners or users by simply taking it to the very extreme end of its limits.
but as I stated in my rod review, they have their short comings.
If it was just about catching enormous barbel then no question…. It’s the only rod I’d use but it’s not.
These are a bit of a 1 trick pony really and they fall massively when it comes to lines of less than 6lb and floats less than 6g and fish less than anything with whiskers. The problem is the rods tip.
It’s very stiff and while the rest of the blank is very powerful, the stiff tip gives the illusion that the rest of the blank is quite slow in action.
Yet it’s not the fact that the action is slow or by any means soft, it’s the stiff tip not soaking up any load and just passing it down the blank.
Works great for big fish but not for much else.
I have 2 of these rods and I decided to take the standard build version back to bare blank for a complete rebuild to my spec.
So I cut everything off the rod and buffed up the blank into a fresh brand new canvas.
Then ……. I ordered in 7 different solid carbon natural finish ground tips and started to do some testing before taking a very sharp knife to the free spirits irreplaceable tip section.
Why……? Because I believe that by making that tip softer into the powerful blank I’m making the rod action faster and it will make the rod a lot more versatile when it comes to using it for other purposes.
It should feel better with lighter lines of say 4lb and yet the power and strength in the rest of the rod still remains and ensures I can still hit and hold hard against the biggest of barbel if I need. The idea behind it is achieving perfection at both ends of the scale minus bit bashing.. I’ve got no interest in that.
I don’t believe a spliced tip has ever been put into rods quite this powerful before and it wasn’t particularly easy to get a blend between the sections. It needed a tip that would go from quite soft at the front to quite stiff at the back and do this over a short 600mm distance. I don’t like spliced tip rods that have mis matched actions between the hollow and solid sections. Too soft a tip and it doesn’t work correctly.
You shouldn’t be able to tell where that joint is made under load if it’s done perfectly.
In this case the tip I used was a little stiffer than what I put in the avenger and a faster taper to ensure the stiffness in the tip got to the back end quicker so the transition between the stiff blank and soft tip blended perfectly. Took some doing and i wasn’t going to accept anything less than perfection. J
The rest of the rod got just as much attention.
Shaving weight of the 215g rod was essential and adds to the rod’s versatility because a lighter rod feels better for a lighter style of fishing.
This was done with lighter 2 types of guides with no compromising on stand off.
1.5 inch reduction on the handle with no stainless steel and changes to the guides like stepping straight into single legged after the butt guide.
Fuji kdps seat in a similar handle configuration to normarks
The result of these changes is staggering
The weight has come right off it and more importantly it’s come off the whole rod so it doesn’t have too much nose heaviness feeling to it. There is always a bit on long 15ft rods especially spliced tip rods with light handles but it’s far from excessive.
I don’t know if I’ve achieved perfection I’m waiting for the river to drop before I got out and actually tried it and I need to try it in several different scenarios to see how it fairs on a versatility basis but based on a dry pull. A reel, some line , direct comparison with other rods, it seems to be exactly as I imagined it would and I’m confident it could be very close to perfection.
Anyway….. less waffle more pics.
Original hollow tip loaded with 3oz
new spliced tip loaded with 3oz
For comparison on the softer end of the scale we have the browning sphere 13’6 river rod loaded with 3 oz
There will be more updates on it hopefully soon when it’s started getting through afew fish and undergone proper testing. Hopefully it’s fantastic and not all for nothing.
I’m not responsible should you decide to carry out anything I describe in this post.
All will make sense as you read on.
So last year I bought 2 avenger 2000 rods both in sorry looking states.
I stripped and cut and spliced and built with the help of a well known builder and good friend to achieve something of greatness.
We came out of it with an avenger 2000 13/14ft hollow/spliced tip and I’ve been battering the life out of it since. With the spliced tip section It’s the most fantastic river trotting rod I own in terms of action, weight and capabilities.
This year I’ve done it again but in doing so I’ve taken a huge risk. A bold step and it’s not something i would recommend lightly.
I’m taking about serious modifications to a perfectly in tact, very rare and very expensive rod.
It’s no secret that I absolutely love the original free spirit float rods in 15ft. This year I’ve had some amazing achievements on them in terms of enormous barbel and I’ve gotten to know that blank probably better than most owners or users by simply taking it to the very extreme end of its limits.
but as I stated in my rod review, they have their short comings.
If it was just about catching enormous barbel then no question…. It’s the only rod I’d use but it’s not.
These are a bit of a 1 trick pony really and they fall massively when it comes to lines of less than 6lb and floats less than 6g and fish less than anything with whiskers. The problem is the rods tip.
It’s very stiff and while the rest of the blank is very powerful, the stiff tip gives the illusion that the rest of the blank is quite slow in action.
Yet it’s not the fact that the action is slow or by any means soft, it’s the stiff tip not soaking up any load and just passing it down the blank.
Works great for big fish but not for much else.
I have 2 of these rods and I decided to take the standard build version back to bare blank for a complete rebuild to my spec.
So I cut everything off the rod and buffed up the blank into a fresh brand new canvas.
Then ……. I ordered in 7 different solid carbon natural finish ground tips and started to do some testing before taking a very sharp knife to the free spirits irreplaceable tip section.
Why……? Because I believe that by making that tip softer into the powerful blank I’m making the rod action faster and it will make the rod a lot more versatile when it comes to using it for other purposes.
It should feel better with lighter lines of say 4lb and yet the power and strength in the rest of the rod still remains and ensures I can still hit and hold hard against the biggest of barbel if I need. The idea behind it is achieving perfection at both ends of the scale minus bit bashing.. I’ve got no interest in that.
I don’t believe a spliced tip has ever been put into rods quite this powerful before and it wasn’t particularly easy to get a blend between the sections. It needed a tip that would go from quite soft at the front to quite stiff at the back and do this over a short 600mm distance. I don’t like spliced tip rods that have mis matched actions between the hollow and solid sections. Too soft a tip and it doesn’t work correctly.
You shouldn’t be able to tell where that joint is made under load if it’s done perfectly.
In this case the tip I used was a little stiffer than what I put in the avenger and a faster taper to ensure the stiffness in the tip got to the back end quicker so the transition between the stiff blank and soft tip blended perfectly. Took some doing and i wasn’t going to accept anything less than perfection. J
The rest of the rod got just as much attention.
Shaving weight of the 215g rod was essential and adds to the rod’s versatility because a lighter rod feels better for a lighter style of fishing.
This was done with lighter 2 types of guides with no compromising on stand off.
1.5 inch reduction on the handle with no stainless steel and changes to the guides like stepping straight into single legged after the butt guide.
Fuji kdps seat in a similar handle configuration to normarks
The result of these changes is staggering
The weight has come right off it and more importantly it’s come off the whole rod so it doesn’t have too much nose heaviness feeling to it. There is always a bit on long 15ft rods especially spliced tip rods with light handles but it’s far from excessive.
I don’t know if I’ve achieved perfection I’m waiting for the river to drop before I got out and actually tried it and I need to try it in several different scenarios to see how it fairs on a versatility basis but based on a dry pull. A reel, some line , direct comparison with other rods, it seems to be exactly as I imagined it would and I’m confident it could be very close to perfection.
Anyway….. less waffle more pics.
Original hollow tip loaded with 3oz
For comparison on the softer end of the scale we have the browning sphere 13’6 river rod loaded with 3 oz
There will be more updates on it hopefully soon when it’s started getting through afew fish and undergone proper testing. Hopefully it’s fantastic and not all for nothing.
Only joking - nice work.
