The Master Rod Builder Catching up with Derek Smith

CATCHING UP WITH DEREK SMITH

Derek Smith has been part of the South African flyfishing community for longer than many of us who use his fine hand-built rods can remember.

I first heard the name when a friend was showing off a high-end imported rod and someone in crowd said “that thing is kak - you should’ve got Derek to build it”. Since then I’ve had the pleasure to own a few rods that he’s built and to have seen or fished with many, many more.

We recently had the opportunity to fish with Derek for small and largescale yellowfish for a few days. Spending time with the man and picking his brain on all matters relating to rods, reels and lines was both fun and educational. But the education didn’t end there - he schooled us out on the river by landing what was comfortably the biggest fish of the week.

We caught up with Derek to talk family, pending retirement and his love affair with rod building.

SAFFM: You’re a household name, a brand, really. Who is Derek Smith?

DS: I’ve been married to Delene for about thirty years. We have two kids, Gavin (28) and Megan (24). I met my wife at varsity and went out with her for some years before we got married.

Before that I studied chemistry, information systems and business management. I’ve worked for Standard Bank for the last twenty-six years and retire during the course of next year. I’m looking forward to retirement - it’s been a long haul at Standard Bank, but I think that rod building and flyfishing has helped me survive twentysix years at the bank.

SAFFM: Where did your flyfishing journey begin?

DS: I’ve always loved fishing. My father used to fish a bit and I remember fishing with him once or twice for carp and again when we went down to the coast. I started flyfishing in 1981 at the age of twenty. As a student we went down to Royal Natal National Park and I’ve been flyfishing crazy since then.

SAFFM: And rods? You’re a damned fine angler but we suspect that your name is forever fated to be associated with rods and rod making.

DS: In the early days I bought a lot of different types of fly rods, upgrading all the time, but I certainly went through a bunch of crummy rods, reels and lines back then.

I started building in 1987. The first rod that I ever built was an Orvis 7’9” two-weight that I bought as a kit from Roger Baert at The Flyfisherman. Roger helped me quite a lot in the early days and certainly contributed to me taking on flyfishing rod building.

SAFFM: The Flyfisherman was really central to a lot of the growth of the sport back then.

DS: I remember looking forward to receiving The Flyfisherman catalogue and they certainly made quite a contribution to the early days of my flyfishing career. I built quite a few Orvis rods, mostly for myself and

I remember when I saw my first Sage rod at Laxton’s up in Johannesburg and I was completely blown away by it. I’ve had a love affair with Sage rods ever since.

SAFFM: How many Sages do you think you’ve built?

DS: I estimate that I’ve built about 2200 Sage rods over the last thirty years.

SAFFM: Holy smokes! At replacement cost that’s more than <checks his calculator twice> R20million in fly rods!

DS: Well, I’ve been building fly rods for over thirty years now. Mostly Sage, but also Scott, Winston, TFO, G Loomis, Loop and more recently Epic and CTS.

After thirty years I’m still passionate about rod building. I think that to do something SAFFM: What goes into building a rod? We all have them and love them but I don’t think that it’s something that we think about much or have a real appreciation for.

DS: The basic rod building steps are turning inserts for reel seats, turning grips, wrapping the guides and varnishing.

I’ve turned my own reel seats inserts for probably the last twenty-five years. With regard to cork, I’ve always turned my own cork grips other than the few Orvis rods that I made in the early years.

Wrapping the guides is probably the most laborious bit of the process. It takes quite a bit of time - probably about two hours to wrap a complete rod end-to-end and then the varnish takes about an hour per coat. There’s another hour between first and second coat where you have to clean up the wraps.

DS: I’ve been collecting exotic wood for as long as I’ve been turning my own inserts. I’ve got wood from all over the world - Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, the USA - so I’ve got tons of exotic wood for inserts. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of rod building.

I’ve been bringing in cork for the last twenty-five years, or maybe a bit longer, and one thing for sure is that the quality of cork has gone down over the years while the price has increased. One can still get some very good cork out of Portugal, but it costs quite a bit.

SAFFM: How much time do you invest into a build?

DS: Overall a rod probably takes about eight hours from start to finish. An hour for the reel seat, half an hour for the cork, two hours to wrap and two hours to varnish with maybe an hour in between. Another half an hour to finish up with some polishing of the finished rod, doing the rod tube, getting the rod bag ready and that sort of thing. So, yes, about eight hours allin-all.

SAFFM: Have you peaked at some point? In terms of the process did you reach a point where you said to yourself that this is as good as it will ever get?

DS: Over the years I think that I’ve tried to improve my rod building. Each year I’ve tried to take on something new, some new aspect of the process of rod building.

I think that over time the area that I’ve improved most is the cork work. Some of my early grips were not very special but I pride myself on my cork work now as being some of the best. use a two-component epoxy varnish, Flexcoat, and something called RodDancer which is also very good. What I do these days is that I extract the bubbles out of the varnish on the second coat using a vacuum system. This ensures that the varnish is completely clear and that no bubbles appear in the varnish once it’s set.

Varnishing is quite tricky. I think that varnish sets one rod apart from the next and if you look at your great production rods like Winston, Sage or Scott one of the things that sets them apart from the rest is the quality of the varnishing. It makes or breaks a rod.

SAFFM: Who out there over time has consistently made the best mass-produced rods?

DS: Some of the best factory rods are, I think, Sage, Scott and Winston, from a production build point of view. Some of the worst are probably TFO and Loomis. I think that Loomis in particular has comprised on the cork quite a lot and their varnishing is not too good either.

SAFFM: What has changed over the years in terms of rod design? You’ve seen literally thousands of blanks pass through your shop and must have noticed trends changing.

DS: There’s no doubt that over the last couple of years rods have become faster and faster.

SAFFM:

Are they better for it?

DS: I think that it’s probably to the detriment of fishing enjoyment. There’s no doubt that a medium/fast action rod is the best overall from a fishing enjoyment and casting ability point of view.

As rods have got faster over time it has made it quite difficult for new flyfishers entering the sport to try to get an understanding of how to match a rod and a line.

I think that some rod manufacturers have confused fast action versus stiff rods and I think Sage in particular has done this, especially if you look at some of their saltwater rods. I don’t think that they’re as fast as stiff so on some of their rods you could actually argue that you could throw a nine weight line with a seven weight rod. I think that that further confuses fishermen.

Just a short comparison; I had a couple of mates cast an old Sage RPL blank. It’s probably about twenty-five years old (I have a couple of old rods or blanks around still). We compared that to the Sage X and I must say that in terms of the sweetness of the blank the RPL was just as good as the X. The only difference was that the RPL was a fair bit heavier.

I think that what has happened is that as carbon has got stiffer over the years the wall thickness has become thinner and thinner so you’re getting a similar action rod, but it’s a lot lighter. As a compromise for the lightness you’re getting so many more rods breaking because the wall thickness is so much thinner. I did a fourpiece conversion on an old Orvis Western series, a rod of at least twenty-five to thirty years old. In the tip section the wall thickness was so great that I could hardly put a spigot in to complete the four-piece conversion. SAFFM: Do you do a lot of repairs? Are there some guys that are just more prone to breaking rods than anyone else? There must be a few perpetually clumsy guys out there.

DS: I do have two customers who break more than anyone else. Horst [Fliter] ,but I guess he fishes a lot, and another customer who doesn't look after rods - he has broken 3 rods in electric windows alone.

I've had boats, dogs, horses, kids, electric fans, etc. break rods, but the craziest was a friend of mine who twice left his tip section on the roof of his car .

SAFFM: I have a friend who lost the third section each of two different fairly collectible old Orvis rods on consecutive weekends and who broke a new rod before he even fished them - once in New Zealand and once in Slovenia. Some guys have a knack for it or something. Luckilly we don't travel light. How many rods do you own?

DS: I have about fifteen rods (CTS, Epic, Sage and Scott) and thirty reels (Shilton and Galvan).

SAFFM: And are you a reel nut? Do you like the bench made stuff and oddities? We just love them and can never understand people who don’t.

An acrylic reel seat insert to match a Galvan reel

DS: I have a sickness for reels - I currently own twenty Galvans. I've previously owned Abels, Ross, Hardy and Hatch but sold them to upgrade. The reels I should never have sold... Ross San Miguel 1, 2 and 3. They were ten years ahead of their time.

SAFFM: Is there a rod that you’ve sold that you regret? We all have one or two of those.

Definitely my Sage Z-Axis 490-4.

SAFFM: You must get really tired of everyone wanting to talk rods with you. We're really geeking out here - surely it bores you by now?

DS: Not at all. I'm passionate about tackle and enjoy talking tackle. What makes it interesting is that taste in tackle is very much a personal thing... I just received a Tom Morgan 8' 4wt fibreglass blank to build for a customer. It's such an awesome blank…

SAFFM: Oh really? He’s got a huge reputation. Is it good? Do you like glass? I don’t. Not because it isn’t good, necessarily, but because it feels like another thing to buy and not fish much.

DS: Glass rods are quite niche, I like them, but their application is limited. 7' and 7'6" 3/4 at is their sweet spot. I prefer them to cane rods.

SAFFM: You’ve run parallel careers, in a way, for decades. It must have kept you busy and it looks as though it’s made you happy. You’re not going to stop making rods anytime soon, but what are your retirement plans?

DS: Absolutely. One thing I've done well is to separate work and hobbies. You have to build lots of rods to pay for varsity.

I must admit it is a little daunting after having been in corporate life for more than thirty-five years. Having said that it's time to go. Maybe I should have retired at fifty-five.

I retire in March next year. I plan to rod build full time, fish and travel. I have a sister in law in Germany and brother in US. Travel is a priority.

The last place I fished was Hastings syndicate in Nottingham Road and I'm visiting Highland lodge at the end of October. But post-retirement I plan to go back to New Zealand, Chile and Slovenia.

SAFFM: Well, we wish you tight lines for retirement. Thanks for being such a credit to flyfishing in Southern Africa. You are an ambassador for everything that is great about the sport and we’re grateful for your time and insights.