It was a vote of confidence in our industry that this year's show was fully booked out.
Moving the Rod Builder's Rendevous to the Saturday Public Day was a great success, with about 35 to 40 attending. Frogley's Offshore were generous hosts, putting on a magnificent spread. Michael Starkey introduced new Fuji and Frogley's rod building products including:
- EZ Nylon and NOCP thread (stock currently unavailable)
- Fuji TCH Titanium Carbon Hybrid Series reel seats
- New O Ring K Series guides which are an affordable guide option
- Speed thread in a regular Nylon A size, all colours
- Speed thread in a NOCP colour treated B size, all colours. The B size is approximately the same diameter as A NOCP.
- New Speed Metallic colours in size A and C
About 12 boat and spinning rods were entered into the rod building competition. A Bryce Knight baitcasting rod featuring 100 year old mallee root grips was the winner. Have a think about entering a rod next year, looking at someone else's work and being able to talk to them, is a great way to learn about rod building.
I also headed over to see Sam Ballie at United Tackle distributors for many products including the new Sabre Australia G3 series of blanks. Since last years show Sam and Andrew have been working on fine tuning the range. We should see the new models in the 65 series in November. I am told all colours will be available including the Tan, which the Sabre series of blanks has been known for over the last 40 years.
