Fly rod to spinning rod conversion???

That's right, I've said something way out of the ordinary!

Ive seen some guys trout fishing with really long poles. I talked to several of these guys and said they converted a fly rod blank (3-4 wt.) into a 2 or 3 piece spinning rod. The question is, how hard is it to convert a 3-4 wt. 6'9" fly rod into a spinning rod for panfish?

Also so to note, I have no experience in rod building, but I'll give a hand at it. I do have a junky 3-4 wt. that I have in my closet that I rarely use anymore and I was wondering if I could just strip the eyes off, re-cork the butt, new reel seat, and put light spinning reel eyes on it.

Thanks guys!

"Calm Sease, My Friend."

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Originally Posted by 2Bass2Furious

... I was wondering if I could just strip the eyes off, re-cork the butt, new reel seat, and put light spinning reel eyes on it.

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You don't have to go to all that trouble. You could just fish it "as is" with a spinning reel. I have.

Never thought of that. I'll look into it. Thank you!

Only thing I would do if you want to try is take off rear most guide and add a larger spinning guide. Not really necessary, I cast far as I want to with jigging pole and small guides. If your interested lots of videos on YouTube on rod building..

"Many Moons ago" ---
I taped a spinning reel to the cork handle of a 8' fly rod (Grandpa hand me down rod) and taped off the rear reel seat (so it wouldn't scratch me or hang up in anything). I used that outfit for several years, and caught quite a few fish on it. Though I mostly used it for slip float/minner fishing among standing trees, with Spiderwire 20/6 braid ... I could just as easily have used it to cast jigs and other baits, or vertical jig with it.

... cp :kewl

Run what ya brung. Small reels work a little better but light line makes it easier to cast with the smaller guides.

Back in the '60's, I bought an 8' "wet fly" (soft, totally parabolic action) fiberglass blank from the old Netcraft catalog. Had a local bait shop owner (yeah, that's where you use to always have to go to buy fishing stuff!) build it into a Tennessee handled spinning rod. I did this for trout fishing local streams. It served me well for many, many years. I use to use an old Johnson Century spin-cast reel, rigged under the rod, and filled with 2# test Stren monofilament.

I still have that rod today as a matter of fact. And earlier in 2015, I took it out for crappie. Wow! What a difference between the old fiberglas rods of yesteryear and today's modern graphites! This old rod felt soooooo darn heavy and cumbersome. But.....that's all we had to deal with back then. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that yes, you can use a fly rod blank for a crappie rod. And I'll bet it'll be a whole lot better than what I had to use way back when! :)

I have a closet full of these conversions. Back in my steelhead days, we used to build our rods out of fly rods all the time. Best rods for the money were built on a 2 pieces Sage Blank. You can no longer get that blank anymore. We built them just like a fly rod with three stripper eyes and the rest all in snake eyes. Makes them really light.

Most days, you will find both my dad and I crappie fishing with these same setups. 10.5 foot will cast a jig a heck of a long ways.

You can re-tie the rod if you prefer. I recommend going to Youtube and looking for "Getbit Outdoors". Captain Kevin Brotz has an instructional series on how to build a rod. He does a great job.

The easiest way however to convert your fly rod to a spinning rod is to simply purchase a "fighting but". This was though of long ago in the fly fishing world for people that could get multiple uses out of the same rods. Most of my steelhead rods are actually built like a fly rod with a removable butt "fighting but". They have a rubber o-ring to help hold them in place and can be purchased in several lengths. If you fly rod doesn't have the ability to do it, the other option would be to add on a chub piece to the back and create a rear handle. Way easier than re-doing the entire rod.

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Originally Posted by Crestliner08

Back in the '60's, I bought an 8' "wet fly" (soft, totally parabolic action) fiberglass blank from the old Netcraft catalog. Had a local bait shop owner (yeah, that's where you use to always have to go to buy fishing stuff!) build it into a Tennessee handled spinning rod. I did this for trout fishing local streams. It served me well for many, many years. I use to use an old Johnson Century spin-cast reel, rigged under the rod, and filled with 2# test Stren monofilament.

I still have that rod today as a matter of fact. And earlier in 2015, I took it out for crappie. Wow! What a difference between the old fiberglas rods of yesteryear and today's modern graphites! This old rod felt soooooo darn heavy and cumbersome. But.....that's all we had to deal with back then. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that yes, you can use a fly rod blank for a crappie rod. And I'll bet it'll be a whole lot better than what I had to use way back when! :)

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Although I grew up in the '90s, I still remember old bait shops with old owners. I remember there was a little shop not too far from a prime smallmouth lake that my father and I would get night crawlers and shiners from it, and his lady running it was in her late 80s to early 90s. Super nice woman!

I just wish there were more "mom and pop" bait shops now... They always sold the best gear and provided a nice shopping experience.

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Originally Posted by wicklundrh

I have a closet full of these conversions. Back in my steelhead days, we used to build our rods out of fly rods all the time. Best rods for the money were built on a 2 pieces Sage Blank. You can no longer get that blank anymore. We built them just like a fly rod with three stripper eyes and the rest all in snake eyes. Makes them really light.

Most days, you will find both my dad and I crappie fishing with these same setups. 10.5 foot will cast a jig a heck of a long ways.

You can re-tie the rod if you prefer. I recommend going to Youtube and looking for "Getbit Outdoors". Captain Kevin Brotz has an instructional series on how to build a rod. He does a great job.

The easiest way however to convert your fly rod to a spinning rod is to simply purchase a "fighting but". This was though of long ago in the fly fishing world for people that could get multiple uses out of the same rods. Most of my steelhead rods are actually built like a fly rod with a removable butt "fighting but". They have a rubber o-ring to help hold them in place and can be purchased in several lengths. If you fly rod doesn't have the ability to do it, the other option would be to add on a chub piece to the back and create a rear handle. Way easier than re-doing the entire rod.

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This is might be a stupid question but the pole I have has one stripper eye and the rest snakes. Could I use the snake eyes instead or would those have to be stripped off and converted? Most of the fishing I'll be doing is float and jigging, I'm not casting and retrieving.

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Originally Posted by 2Bass2Furious

This is might be a stupid question but the pole I have has one stripper eye and the rest snakes. Could I use the snake eyes instead or would those have to be stripped off and converted? Most of the fishing I'll be doing is float and jigging, I'm not casting and retrieving.

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To me, the only downside with snake guides is you won't get quite the casting distance as you would with regular guides. If you're not casting, it's a total non-issue, IMO. Just slap a reel on that baby and go fishing.

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Originally Posted by 2Bass2Furious

This is might be a stupid question but the pole I have has one stripper eye and the rest snakes. Could I use the snake eyes instead or would those have to be stripped off and converted? Most of the fishing I'll be doing is float and jigging, I'm not casting and retrieving.

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IMHO --
They should work fine, for whatever method you choose to use. Just check them to make sure there aren't any burrs, nicks, or rough spots on any of the guides .. so your line has a smooth surface to pass over. You can use a Q-tip or cotton ball to swab the insides of the guides, to check for any "problems", as the cotton fibers will snag on any such places.

... cp :kewl

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Originally Posted by 2Bass2Furious

... I do have a junky 3-4 wt. that I have in my closet that I rarely use anymore ...

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Just out of curiosity, who is the manufacturer?

You may look at Mud Hole rod building Blanks. I've wrapped a hand full of their 9' blanks as fly rods( one stripper and rest snake guides). Fish them a little different with out reel but do have reel seat on them. New to crappie fishing but have been catching fish with them. I'm looking at 12' blanks to make up for spinning reel with casting guides. Your stripper guide is probably a #10/8 on a older rod, more so on rods with metal ferrules. The blanks are labeled Pan Fish/Crappie blanks page 35 in the 2016 catalog. Has anyone got any in put on these blanks. I'm not a Pro Rod Wrapper but enjoy doing it. As long as its functional when i'm finished then I'm happy

First question answer: You should be just fine with one stripper eye and the rest snake eyes. Like Pappy said, just make sure there are no burrs in the eyes to nick your line. The newer eyes are made different than the other ones. I'd fish with it for a time or two to find out how she will work before you make any changes. The rods of yesteryear are not like the rods of today. That can be both a good thing and bad thing. Good in the sense that technologies have come a long way, but bad in the sense that some of those old rod actions just cannot be duplicated with newer technologies.

BNell: I do have experience with the rods (Pan Fish/Crappie blanks) that you described. I tied one (Slab actually has it). The action was good but I was less than impressed with the rod itself. I tie a ton of MHX rods so I've dealt with quite a few over the last couple of years. Unlike a fly rod or steelhead style rod, these rod have a gigantic butt section (.63 on the 12 footer). that is huge for a panfish rod. The action was good but it was heavy as all get out. In my opinion, they would make better spider rigging rods than they would make as a caster, or a dipping/jigging rod. The weight on the blank alone is 5.1. A quality fly rod blank in the same action should come in at the low 2's. For longer rods (salmon and steelhead rods) or fly rods, I tie on other blanks. For me, the MHX blanks in those categories just don't measure up. I know we are talking apples and pineapple, but for those style of rods, I prefer "North Fork Composites". The company is owned by Gary Loomis. He started it after he sold G. Loomis to Shimano and they started running it in to the ground. Greater expense but, like I said, you are getting a Cadillac and not a Pinto.

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Originally Posted by deathb4disco

Just out of curiosity, who is the manufacturer?

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I honestly have no idea. It was my father's old rod and from age, the name just scraped off. I can tell it's a cheap $40-60 rod due to the construction of it.

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Originally Posted by 2Bass2Furious

I honestly have no idea. It was my father's old rod and from age, the name just scraped off. I can tell it's a cheap $40-60 rod due to the construction of it.

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I was just wondering because it's an odd length ( 6'9")

Is it fiberglass?

I can tell you from experience, I got a buddy that fishes with a 8ft fly rod setup like that and he has really put a beating on me many times fishing with a float. He can make the float wiggle in place with it and it is so deadly.

Yes, it is fiberglass.

First "jig pole" I fished with was an old handed down glass fly rod. Before tight lining with it , I got to use it a few times as a kid on a willow fly hatch but soon decided I didn't have enough finesse technique to be a fly fisherman. Good luck.

No need for all that trouble just build a spinning rod off a fly rod blank:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_y23NOdzOY

Or you could rig the fly reel itself for a conventional rig. Fly rod don't have to cast fly line, nor do you have to have a spinning reel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pWEJVLMPG0

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Originally Posted by 2Bass2Furious

That's right, I've said something way out of the ordinary!

Ive seen some guys trout fishing with really long poles. I talked to several of these guys and said they converted a fly rod blank (3-4 wt.) into a 2 or 3 piece spinning rod. The question is, how hard is it to convert a 3-4 wt. 6'9" fly rod into a spinning rod for panfish?

Also so to note, I have no experience in rod building, but I'll give a hand at it. I do have a junky 3-4 wt. that I have in my closet that I rarely use anymore and I was wondering if I could just strip the eyes off, re-cork the butt, new reel seat, and put light spinning reel eyes on it.

Thanks guys!

"Calm Sease, My Friend."

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Just take some black electrical tape and wrap the reel to the cork handle.

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Originally Posted by Techno2000

Just take some black electrical tape and wrap the reel to the cork handle.

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Exactly what I did with an old hand me down. Even taped over the reel seat at the butt end of the handle, so it wouldn't scratch/scrape me or hang in anything when using it. Worked fine for years, and I'd probably still be using it if I hadn't been asked to field test the Duckworth/BnM 8' FnF rod.

The "hand me down" was my Grandpa's, and it had a automatic fly reel on it. He used to use it, fly line & all, to fish for Crappie. He just put a leader on & hook/sinker on the leader and a minner on the hook ... and laid it down on the seat of the old wooden row boats we used to rent from the marina at the local lake we always fished. He'd wait until the Crappie had pulled the end of the fly rod well down into the water, then hit the lever on the reel as he was lifting the rod ... and probably caught as many or more on that fly rod than my Grandma and I did on the 4 spincast outfits we had between the two of us. :Rofl

... cp :kewl

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Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

Exactly what I did with an old hand me down. Even taped over the reel seat at the butt end of the handle, so it wouldn't scratch/scrape me or hang in anything when using it. Worked fine for years, and I'd probably still be using it if I hadn't been asked to field test the Duckworth/BnM 8' FnF rod.

The "hand me down" was my Grandpa's, and it had a automatic fly reel on it. He used to use it, fly line & all, to fish for Crappie. He just put a leader on & hook/sinker on the leader and a minner on the hook ... and laid it down on the seat of the old wooden row boats we used to rent from the marina at the local lake we always fished. He'd wait until the Crappie had pulled the end of the fly rod well down into the water, then hit the lever on the reel as he was lifting the rod ... and probably caught as many or more on that fly rod than my Grandma and I did on the 4 spincast outfits we had between the two of us. :Rofl

... cp :kewl

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Yeah, the only problem with those automatic fly reels is that they weigh a ton.