Calstar 700xh

Dear all,
looks like the rod building section may have almost petered out with only the odd post here and there. No worries, it’s pretty hard to sustain interest for a long time and also no worries if I don’t get any replies.

I purchased a few Calstar 700’s a few year back (XL, ML,XH) and at the snails pace that I build, I’m now ready for the XH. I should also note that in reality I don’t go fishing because I’m boatless and terribly busy but build and collect rods for fun that I don’t use and collect high end gear ......a veritable tackle shop filling a large wardrobe.

Obviously the XH is an absolute beast of a blank and i was originally was going to build a 37kg popper rod to use with a large Expedition or Stella.......which will be pretty heavy. I wondered if I’d be better to cut 30cm from the butt to make a jig/troll rod with the XH and get a more specialist graph/composite blank for the heavy popping rod.

I’ve built a few light Samurais, are blanks like their Pop 10-12 any good? I have also built a few Xzoga blanks for light jigging but dont know about the other end of the spectrum. The only comment I have is that having had some experiences with very light, expensive high end composite rods that exploded inspite of very cautious treatment, I wont sacrifice durability for weight.

I can pretend that I might use half my rods one day.
thanks all, Mike

Hi Mikeyh, a while ago I got a Graphfighter GF900/H black which I wanted to make a popper casting spin rod for a trip I was planning up north, I cut 30cm off the bottom as the seller didn't have the 800 size in stock, not sure if it is similar to your blanks and just longer, put SiC guides on it and it came up nice. Trip got cancelled and so the rod is also sitting unused in my room. :-[. Maybe one day I will dust it off and put it to good use. I must admit that it was the first pure/high graphite blank based rod I had made in a very long time (decades). I am very wary of using them after I busted the tips of a couple in the early days. I prefer to use composite blanks because of that, my preference is using the Ugly Stik blanks as they are pretty indestructible. Only problem is complete shortage of blanks and also the heavier class rods (37Kg) Ugly Stiks are usually about the 5'6" mark, so it would mean getting an off the rack built one, stripping all the components off and then adding an extension, then rebuilding from scratch, which is an expensive and not productive way of getting a blank.

I recently rebuilt a two piece Ugly Stik 24Kg spinning rod and converted it to a overhead rod. That was pretty straight forward, after stripping all the guides and replacing them with SiG's, I could leave the winch, grips and gimbal as is, added the 8 SiG guides and 1 tip on the top piece to match the spine and replaced 1 guide to the bottom section. Originally I had mated it with a Penn Spinfisher SSV8500LL but I sold that reel as it wasn't going to be used and didn't have a replacement except for a FTH15LD2 lever overhead.

It's a pity that those bare blanks aren't available any more, but getting back to graphite rods, whilst I like the pure/high graphite blanks I will always remember the tips snapping off.:(

Mikeyh, love those old compoite calstar blanks! Before babies happenned and i used to build rods i soun a few up:

700M in spin
600m in spin
600m in overhead (spiral)
600H in overhead (spiral)

Still got them all and use them all the time. Unsure as to value of comparison but the 600h is spot on for a 50 pound bottom baching rig but not my preference at all for a jig or troll stick.

Scott

Thanks To Scott and Ed for your replies. I’ll do some more research and see if I can put my hands on a factory Samurai Jigpop 10 or 12 and take my 10000 Stella to see what it feels like. I’ve had the XH for a while now and I guess before it was mandatory to have 8 foot rods for GT fishing. Having caught a few small gt’s on different tackle, I can’t think anything worse than hooking a large specimen on an 8 footer....would probably pull me over the side

Mikey, you are absolutely correct about the leverage involved in a powerful 8ft rod. A 6-7ft would be much better. Reason I made mine 8ft is that:

A) I made mine with a long bottom grip (about 50cm to middle of the reel winch) and I always use a hang down rod bucket, which brings the leverage point up making it more manageable in my favour.
B) I am not always going to get a humongous Giant Trevally on the end, so for all the other fish it shouldn't be a problem, it will still enable me to cast a popper further with the extra length, as well as a bit more maneuvering room for when I am on a break wall or rocks. As for if things get too much, I can always point the rod downward letting the drag do the work and very little leverage (assuming the fish is not straight down under the boat).