Korker Boots Blow out

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Fishing a stream about 2 miles up my Korker’s soles separated from the uppers. Rather shocking as they advertise themselves as a quality product. Having a good look at them you can see there is very little glue holding the uppers to the Sole. Must have been a Monday Morning boot, or the guy was running out of glue. Had a hell of a time limping back. Luckily I had some leader to hold them together for the walk back. Don’t expect them to last forever but where is quality control.

Warranty has expired but emailed customer service, as they seemed to have a rather shoddy glue job to say the least. Not much bonding there. Here’s the answer I received below. Basically too bad fix them yourself. Gone are the days where people stood behind their products. Can’t say I’ll be running out to buy another pair of Korkers and rather disappointed as they are not cheap. Can’t find the glue they suggested but will try Shoo Glue. Let you know how it works. Anyone else had this problem?

 

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Thank you for getting in touch with us, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve experienced a problem with one of our products. For most glue issues and repairs, I’d recommend a product called Free Sole:

 

You’ll want to make sure that the boots are clean and dry before attempting a repair. Let us know if you have any other questions, thank you.

 

Best Regards,

 

Mark Fuller

Customer Service Account Manager

Korkers Products, LLC

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Shallow Rise

A new pen and ink

Strike indicators

Although I don’t use strike indicators all of the time, in certain situations like very deep nymphing or where delicate takes need to be addressed they can be ideal. Here’s a tip for storing those indicators whether they be the yarn type (which I like for shallower small streams or the plastic bobber type which are nice for very deep work on big rivers. A large bobby pin will keep the items together in your vest pocket or if you like pin them to your vest pack or jacket for easy access.

If there is interest I will do a tutorial on how to do the yarn ones.

 

 

 

 

Here is what she looks like finished.

 

 

 

 

 

Champaign Corks for rod grips

Being cheap I like to find what I can for projects. One of my boys had a bunch of champaign corks that he had collected. I imagine you can do your own collecting in various ways…. the cork is really nice, it seems to vary with the brand. Some of it was fine and others more Burl like so it pays to look at different brands. I found that there was also sections  that where lamented with a finer cork at the top, perhaps harder so a corkscrew would not slip. Hmm… I wonder if drinking the wine for the corks would make you a purest. Kind of like dry fly fishermen.

I’m building a fibreglass rod so wanted a bit of a retro look and this cork was along those lines. to get rid of the “neck” I boiled it for about 20 minutes.

I noticed some cork swelled back to place faster than others so I fished them out as soon as they looked good.

Cork came out nice  looking. trimmed the ends off to get them flat and produce a fresh glue area.

Next step mark the “Spine” on all 3 sections

Boring out the reel seat to fit the blank.

I like to use 5 minute Epoxy to glue the blank to the reel seat, here’s the blank cover with Epoxy

Lining up the blank with the end of the seat. Although it dries quickly I like to leave it overnight.

Boring out the cork, These are fairly large in diameter so I wasn’t really carful centring them. A drill press is nice but a hand drill works well. I remember my dad doing this with a brace and bit.

Scoring out the back cork to perfectly fit the front of the reel foot receiver. I like an X-Acto Knife for this.

I lined up the drilled out corks on the blank so they fit nice and then drew a line across the corks to easily find their position again. I also like to number them to get them back in the right sequence.

Here’s a simple cork handle compresser I built 20 years ago. Just a couple of long threaded pieces with washers and wing nuts. I do a quick fit before gluing.

Use a waterproof glue like Gorilla Glue or Tibond II. The squashed out glue is easily cleaned up with a scrap cloth and water. Leave it compressed overnight and you’re good to go.

Mountain Brook Fibreglass rods

I had order a couple of Fibreglass blanks from Mike at Mountain Brook rods in the US. the Blanks came rolling in the door during the week. Really nice, I have a 4/5 w 3pc and a 6 foot little rod that will certainly by the feel of it will become my small stream Brookie rod. Popped over to Fish Tails fly shop today to pick up a few guides that I was short of. Wanted to do something different with the grip though, kind of bored with the standard white cork and was mulling doing a grip in Birch, but decided to go with Champaign Corks instead. Nice high quality stuff. I’ll post the build as I do it. Just thinking about thread colours for the warps.

Brookie Heaven

I met a lot of Brookies this year being part of the Stewardship Program.  Say Hi to a few of my friends.