Fenwick 12 wt. "Tarpon Tamer" blank

[Lee Haskin]

Looking for a home, for this blank.
Acquired this blank back in the 80's from Myron Gregory. Del Brown and I each bought one, from Myron, and never did wrap them.
Yes, it is a dark brown, Ferulite blank.

$50 Plus shipping

Cheers,
Lee

[Jay Murakoshi]

I just acquired a 12wt Fenwick Feralite rod with a fighting butt extension. Going to try it out hopefully on some Yellow Fin tuna in September. I want to see how much flex this rod has. It's in mint condition (right now) might not be after hooking into a yellow fin.
My favorite Fenwick fiberglass rod is my. FF605.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Hi Lee and Jay,

Do these rods and blanks have the fighting butt insert that goes up inside them that is maybe 3 feet long?

[Lee Haskin]

Hi Lee and Jay,

Do these rods and blanks have the fighting butt insert that goes up inside them that is maybe 3 feet long?

Hi Bill. The Blank does not have that feature. Simply a blank. Not sure about the factory rods, with the fighting butt.

Back in the 70's I built a 14 wt. for blue sharks, made from a Fenwick saltwater spinning rod, and I added an additional 6" fighting butt that was removeable, and extended about a foot up into the rod. Of course, this was in addition to the 2" butt. At least at that time the max. length for the fighting butt was 2" (IGFA), but you could insert the extension once the fish was hooked. It was/is a very cool rod, although it was made with standard ferules. Back in the 70's I was sure I could break the world record for blue sharks, and fished them hard for several years. Man, that was a lot of fun! We would use chum and catch jacksmelt, etc., while we waited for the sharks. It usually didn't take long before we had customers!! Grin!
On one trip we decided to keep one to eat (bad idea), and launched our 12 aluminum boat from the Capitola beach, before sunup, as usual. It turned out to be the Begonia Festival, and when we retuned, there were hundreds of people swarming the beach. Needless to say, our arrival made quite a stir with an 7' blue shark tied to the side of the boat! Of course, someone yelled, "shark", and mayhem erupted! I wish we had a video! Still, it was nice to have the Capitola police help us drag the shark up to the truck! Grin!
The things crazy fly fishermen do....at least this one!!

Cheers,
Lee

[Lee Haskin]

Jay, you need my shark rod, mentioned below. That rod can pull a truck out of the mud! Let me know if you are interested.
I should try and find that rod and post some pictures. Talk about a fighting machine. I still have the Pflueger PAKRON #3178, with 600 yards of backing, that I used for the big sharks. It weighs about 4 lbs. but sure got the job done! Grin!

Cheers,
Lee

[Jay Murakoshi]

Bill, the rod I have is a factory built rod and came with a 6" fighting butt. I'm going to put my Nautilus 10 reel on the rod. It has 425 yds of 50 braid and a 600gr. head. I pick the reel up from some guy a few years back who is moving to FL. this reel has been the work horse down in Baja for the big roosters, dorado, jacks and even medium size yellow fin.
Lee, you bring back memories about going shark fishing. We use to go out of Moss landing about 2 miles dragging a chum bucket full of frozen fish guts. We had it in one of those wire fish baskets. We would have blue sharks around the boat in no time. At that time, I had a Larson 14' fiberglass runabout. It was a hoot when the sharks would grab on to the basket and get there teeth stuck in it. The whole boat would shake. One time we had to cut the basket off the rope, it felt like a scene from JAWS. At that time, I use a 9' 12wt blank made by Saxton. We use to buy them at the cigar shop in SC.
Great memories
Jay