THE LITTLE GUY
DEREK SMITH A S O N E O F S O U T H A F R I CA’ S T O P ROD BUILDERS, RETIRED BANKER DEREK SMITH’S WORK ON SAGE, E P I C A N D C T S B L A N K S I S H I G H LY S O U G H T A F T E R BY A N G L E R S I N T H E K N O W. Photo. Derek Smith
Who are you? I was born, schooled and worked in Johannesburg. I am married to Dalene and have two kids, Gavin and Megan. I finished school at KES, and then studied chemistry, IT and business management at Wits Tech/UNISA. I recently retired from Standard Bank where I had worked for 27 years.
Derek Smith on the left with yellowfish legend Horst Filter.
I started building fly rods more than 30 years ago after buying a rod-building kit from Roger Baert at the Fly Fisherman in Pietermaritzburg. My first rod was an Orvis Superfine 7’9” 2-weight’. This was the lightest fly rod around and quite a revelation at the time. I built a few Orvis rods for friends, but was blown away by the first Sage blank I saw at the old Laxton’s shop. I’ve been on a Sage mission ever since. During the 90’s, I built many rods for various shops and private customers. These days I build mainly for private customers, many of whom have become good friends over the years.
Rod building is not difficult but does require dexterous fingers and lots of patience. You’d be surprised how many of my friends can’t wrap a single snake guide onto a blank within 30 minutes. I wrap and varnish my rods by hand. I have found this to be the best method. I turn my cork grips on a mandrel and never on the blank. It takes about eight hours to build a rod with 24 hours drying time between the two coats of epoxy. Basic rod-building consists of making the grip and reel seat, wrapping guides and varnishing. Currently, finding decent cork is a big issue and the cost of good cork is about 1€ per half inch ring.
What do you specialise in? I only build fly rods, some fibreglass but mostly carbon fibre fly rods. I love the performance qualities of modern day materials. I did play around with bamboo a bit, but was not passionate about the material. I think modern glass rods are better than bamboo rods in every sense. Glass rods are great in 6-8’ length and 0-5 weight space. Anything heavier is probably better in carbon. Fibreglass can also be dyed different colours to allow for some amazing-looking rod blanks.
What should we watch out for? Each year I’ve tried to master a new skill with the intention of improving the quality of my rods. I’ve tried new guides, threads, varnish and cork. I’ve been collecting local and indigenous burls for reel seats for many years and now have an awesome collection. Fibreglass fly rods are great fun and, if you haven’t tried one, it’s a must. Recently, there has been a move away from ultra-fast rods and medium fast rods are more fun to fish and cast. Currently finding a line for a new rod is a real challenge. Many new rods are super-fast (read stiff) and require a line weight one or two more than indicated on the rod. To compensate, some line manufacturers have made their lines heavier and it’s now really important to cast a new line on your rod before buying it.
Over the years Sage has been the standout blank manufacturer with many generations of great fly rods. Sage recently replaced a Sage LL 279 blank that I built 25 years ago at a nominal cost - not many fly rod companies could do that after five years. Over the years I’ve built many different blanks but I am super impressed with Sage, Scott and Winston rods. More recently I’ve been building lots of Epic and CTS blanks (NZ) both of which are top quality and compete favourably with the best that comes out of the US. I’ve also seen some quality blanks coming out of Asia and the gap is narrowing quite quickly.
Now that I’m retired I’m building more rods and intending to travel and fish a lot more. To check out Derek’s work, visit facebook.com/dereksmithcustomflyrods
