Reply With QuoteA guy near me used to build the old Ugly Sticks, before they went offshore, he and his wife used to build them up in their house, pretty good they were/are, probably near the top of the tree for off the shelf rods back then.
Pulled my old Uglystik out the other day and just realised what a great parabolic working curve it has.
This rod is every bit of 30 years old, is about 5ft 6ins and rated 10kg.(overhead)
It has a chrome plated brass reel seat and the fuji guides are not SIC, but are still good.
Built on an unsanded blank and I have not used it since I got my T-Curves and Venoms, but it is going to work again.
A guy near me used to build the old Ugly Sticks, before they went offshore, he and his wife used to build them up in their house, pretty good they were/are, probably near the top of the tree for off the shelf rods back then.
Some were probably OK but I've got an old Ugly stik GBJ30 in the shed. From the mid 90's. Got to say it is one of the most awkward and pointless rods I own.
Its about 6'6, fairly fast action but has a long butt so the fish gets all the leverage. And while it's rated as a 30lb rod, it's as stiff as a broomstick. At least a 50lb rod. Bloody painful to use. And it was fitted with standard fuji flouro ring guides.
I upgraded the guides but it's just too painful to fish with compared to current rods.
Yes, I have a 6-10kg one that is only 2 years old and it`s action is all in the top half.Originally Posted by scuttlebutt
I too owned a few old Ugly Stiks i think one was a 10 footer a Guttsbutt GB2070 if i recall correctly designed for overheads. That one was also a broomstick with i would say a bend in the top 1/5th of the rod - very strange and awkward to use. The other one was a GB2010 and that one was decent.
Guides were glow in the dark aluminium oxide and very hard to break.
The newer "Gold" series are not nearly as good as the older ones.
All my collection is now graphite daiwa and shimano apart from my trusty 10 year old 4-8kg ugly stick.I love the action and feel of it but its not suited for my estuary style of fishing.I use it with a Shimano baitrunner as my live baiter now.Great value for money rods.
My dad still has a Caloundra built ugly stik that must be 30 years old by now. Still a rather excellent rod, though mostly in retirement these days. The last decent fish it caught was a 12-15kg GT off Fraser Island back in about 1995. At the time it had an equally as old Alvey on it along with 15lb mono. Never seen someone palm an alvey so well.
I also have 4 "Ugly sticks" in my shed, I built them about 32? years ago when I lived in Perth, two of them are the small light ones about 5'4" I think, which I made one into a spin rod and the other for a small baitcaster. They were great and were my goto rods for baitfish, Garfish, Herring and Bream and smallish trevally. Both are now waiting in the shed till I get some more time and one day I will strip them and redo the guides on them as they need replacing. The other two are the heavier gold coloured Gutsbut rods which I added an extention to one and made it into a small 9ft beach rod and the other into a overhead rod. Don't use any of them anymore now, but the last time I used the overhead gutsbut rod I caught a 23lb Longtail tuna, so a nice way to finish it's life and I don't beach fish anymore so that one is also gathering dust, I don't know if I will get around to using them again, I have built 4 graphite/composite rods in the last couple of years since then, so mainly use those. Two of my daughters said that I am not allowed to sell or give any away as they would like to inherit them.
Back in those days as a blank, they were quite popular but don't see too many of them nowadays. I think that most manufacturers have moved away from the Howald spiral wrapped process to make them and are now more into the woven carbon cloth/bias wrapped blank designs.
Whenever I build baitcaster and even trolling/jigging style rods I always make the handle much longer than standard, I find that they feel better and with more control when casting and general fishing, to compensate for extra length I just modify the gimble rod belts so that they hang lower, the rods' end up sitting much lower as a result and the reel ends up at a good height for me.
Cheers
Ed.
That`s a great catch on 15lb mono!
sorry, something went pear shaped in this post...had to delete
The bloke at Windang,just off the bridge on the left heading north?
Definitely good rods the old Ugly Stiks.I've got 2 x SP1100 and also an aussie made Gutsbutt that's a 12 footer.The 12 footer needs to be extended a bit as the reel seat is a bit close to the sandspike - can't get decent leverage to cast well, although I have done alright on gummy sharks here in Vic so it gets out far enough.Using a US Penn 9500SS on it.
Yep, that's him!
Re: Old Uglystiks
Hi.
I got a coupla old sticks in shed.
Butterworth Super Barra. Original Unsanded version. Lovely light spin stick with ABU 6500c3
FSU 5120 used for spinning the beaches. with ABU9000 red 2 spd.
and one of the original bundle of 7 ft Ugly Stick Blanks that came into Aust in the 70's
Sth Aust.
Around '76\''77 from memory. Tipped it around 5in (metric???) to stiffen a bit.
Still original S\S winch. Shrunk some red shrink wrap over grips and rerunnered it last yr.
Run it with an AVET SX.. Nice little boat stick. for Grey's and Spottie's.
Be a shame to retire it yet. A lot have still to catch up with them
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