It seems as though they don't care...

[BigBassin144]

Who doesn't care? and about what?

Rod companies, that's who. Many (not all) don't seem to care about build quality and craftsmanship. Keep in mind, this isn't a thread to bash one specific rod, just to express my overall disappointment with build quality and craftsmanship.

A recent trip to Cabela's and Gander Mtn got me thinking about this.

At Gander, I finally got my hands on a rod with micro guides. Unfortunately, it was only a Skeet Reese rod. Regardless, I picked it up off the rack and the first thing I did was sight down the blank to check for guide straightness. With the regular Skeet rods, it seemed about every other one had crooked guides. The micros on this rod were actually fairly straight. As my eye moved down the blank, and finally settled on the tip, I was astounded. The tip was nearly an 1/8 turn off!

The other micro rod they has wasn't nearly as straight, but at least the tip wasn't hugely off from the rest of them. This isn't the only problem with those skeet rods however. I've heard reports of the whole reel seat breaking loose!

Also while I was there, I saw a carrot stick. Upon closer inspection of the reel seat, or more specifically the hood and screwlock part, I found that the actual hood part that goes over the foot of the reel was broken off from the screwlock part that you'd turn to loosen or tighten it... I won't even mention all the breakage issues because that was more of an issue with design. Also, many people have had problems with the guides on carrot sticks, although e21 claims to have fixed that.

Now on to what I saw at Cabela's: I searched up and down the rod racks, looking to get my hands on one of those new G Loomis NRX rods. When I finally found them, I was fairly impressed with how they felt. BUT, there was some extra epoxy around the parts of the reel seat where the blank was exposed. Also, the guides (while wrapped straight) weren't wrapped very well. There were gaps in the thread on a lot of guides on almost all of the rods I looked at. I'm sorry, but if I'm going to pay $450-500 for a rod, I'd want it to be PERFECT!!

Even some of the rods I consider to be the "best" of the value rods (in the $100 range) have their issues.. But hey, they only cost $100. An example would be my Abu Garcia Vendetta. I think it is a great rod for the price, but if Abu is shooting for rods comparable to high end rods at cheaper prices, then I think they need to give a bit more. The guides are pretty straight on my Vendetta (although I'd like to have a couple more on it), but the wraps are far from perfect. Maybe I'm being too picky for a $80 rod, but from what I've heard the Veritas is fairly similar in build quality/craftsmanship to the vendetta. Although I still haven't gotten my hands on a Veritas yet...

Well, I guess my long winded rant has finally come to an end. Like I said in the beginning, I have nothing against any of these rods, and this isn't to put down any of them. I am hoping to spawn some good discussion on this topic though.

BB