Brule River is now closed for the season.

It was a tough fall on the Brule to say the least. Timing was critical with the limited rain, this fishing was always better a few days before I was there. It will be interesting to see the DNR's fall run report, I'm guessing there are still a few thousand fish left to come in.

Closing day chrome.

I will be offering a limited number of ice rods this winter, look for a prototype of a heatable handle in the near future. I'm also be accepting rod orders with a down payment of the blank cost for a spring delivery.

Lake Run Brown Trout

Quick post showing a picture of the lake run brown trout I caught and released last weekend on a Lake Superior tributary. This one is a 17" male, you can see the hook starting to form the upper jaw. The belly was turning a blackish color. I also caught a 23" female lake run brown the week before, of course my camera was sitting in the car that day. Both fish were caught with a 6' 6" Salmo Stick rod, the rod was build with micro guides on a St. Croix 3S66ML2 blank. This is my recommended rod for spinner fishing on Lake Superior tribs, it has enough back bone to turn the fish yet light enough to throw #1 spinners. The spinner was also custom made by me.
There are reports of a few steelhead in the rivers, nobody I spoke with had caught any though. They should start moving in "soon".

Shikari Troutski

I procured some of the last of the S500-1 Shikari blanks and will be offering them until they are all sold for $100. These blanks are a deep gloss black, 5'0" long, med/fast action and are rated for 1-4lb line and 1/32-3/16 oz lures. These will be built with the handle shown above, micro guides and built around a size 1000 reel. For those of you who don't know Shikari had a blank factory in Oklahoma and went out of business last year. Advance Tubular Composite (ATC) purchased the tooling and are continuing many of the models at their factory in Washington. ATC is owned by Gary Loomis' cousin and hired one of Loomis' long time engineers, keep an eye out for their blanks in the near future.

If you'd like one get in touch with me via email at bkemis@gmail.com.

Breaking Rank (Part One?)

My friend Al who is a walleye/bass/muskie tournament fisherman convinced me to build him a walleye jigging rod. While I do some walleye jigging it is certainly not my expertise. This is a spinning rod built on SCIII blank and feature mirco guides and carbon split grip (of course).

Al has been initially very pleased with how the rod performs. So pleased we have discussed building him a casting rod (perhaps breaking rank part two?). He said it casts much more precise than the exact same blank built to factory specs (he now owns 3 of the 3S69MLXF blanks), really have to pay attention to where you are casting because that is exactly where it will go. A full review will be forthcoming after he has had a chance to log some time with it in tourny at Mille Lacs in a few weeks.

I've been really thinking these build techniques would work great on a muskie rod... The next project rod...

Field Testing on the St. Mary's River

Finishing the late afternoon shift on the inside rapids

Me and my father spent 3 days fishing the St. Marys River rapids in Souix Ste Marie Ontario. I didn't get a chance to test out the new 3S90MLF blank during the spring steelhead run so I headed northeast to try my luck on the summer Atlantic Run.

First challenge was the rapids. I was told it was mandatory to use a wading staff since the current is strong and the rocks resembled greased bowling balls. Both are valid points, I don't have a staff and the rocks are indeed very treacherous. I was using studded Simms boots with the Aquastealth rubber, these worked awesome. I was able to run laps around my dad who was using felt soled boots.

What worked even better than the boots was the rod. The micro guides lightened the tip up and I could easily determine the spinner speed even with 50 yards of line out in the rapids. I could control the thump-thump-thump of even #3 spinners. The grip length was also perfect, the but nested right on my elbow for great control and balance of the rod. If the lure action broke the other direction it fell perfectly on my hip. This is a new feature I will be incorporating on all long rods (I will be asking for a measurement from you hand to your elbow).

Field Testing on the St. Marys Rapids

The fishing wasn't as great, I think the run is running at least 2 weeks later this year due to the cool spring and summer. I did manage to hook into to 2 salmon and landed a small steelhead. The first salmon hit like a ton and headed straight for the sky. I was standing on a rock and we were at eye level, as soon as he reentered the atmosphere and hit the water the hook was out. The second salmon was more of a battle. After a violent strike he began rolling on the surface at the edge of the whitewater. I battled him to just down stream of me in 3' of water in the boulders, as soon I thought that I had a real chance of landing him my flouro leader decided to give way. Snap and the game was over.

I will be back next summer and try my luck again. In the meantime its nearly time for the lake run of brown trout to enter the Lake Superior tribs...

Micro Guides

All of my rods are build using micro guides, that is guides smaller than those available on factory rods. Most factory rods use #6 guides as running guides on their spinning rods, some use larger guides. My rods use #4 running guides (the guide body actually fits inside of a #6). The most obvious advantage is a reduction in weight on the rod blank, but the sum total of advantages of using micro guides are numerous.


Rod Sensitivity is characterized by the ability of the rod to transfer the motion of the tip to your hands. Less weight on the tip means it takes less force to put the rod tip in motion. By using micro guides the weight on the rod is reduced by half of that of a factory rod. Translation - the rod will transfer vibration in the tip more efficiently making the slightest change in line tension felt by the user.

Field use has shown an increase in casting distance of up to 10% using micro guides when built using the NEW new concept layout of the guides. Less weight on the rod tip makes the rod a more efficient caster by taking less movement to put the tip in motion. This layout also tames the line very quickly with a short transition to the running guides. The rapid transition to the micro guides results in less lateral line movement as it travels down the blank.

All of this adds up to more accurate casting. The same effort will produce the same cast time after time.

There is one problem inherent to the micro guides, freeze up. This is only an issue when the rods will be used in freezing temperatures AND the user will be fishing with either monofilament or fluorocarbon line. Notice that when you use mono, and to a greater extent fluoro, in any temperature that there is water dripping off of the rod tip on retrieve. The problem can be eliminated using braided line with a fluoro/mono leader. While fishing side by side with my fishing partner last fall on the Brule River he had to de-ice his guides about every 10th cast when using a factory rod with standard guides and mono. I was using micro guides and fishing with Fireline and had zero freezing problems.

Conclusion - I strongly recommend using mirco guides for all applications. The benefits are far to numerous to use anything else. If you must use mono or fluoro in freezing conditions I recommend using them as a leader tied to braided line.

Carbon Fiber Split Grip

The carbon split grip is finally ready for production after numerous prototypes where built, tested and discarded. This is the standard grip used on all my rods, it utilizes a Fuji reel seat that is customized to work with the carbon fiber. There isn't an insert between the reel locks as in conventional seats. This seat uses a one piece foam core that is wrapped in carbon. The carbon is 50% lighter than cork and provides a solid transmission of the slightest movement on the end of the line.

The ultralight trout rods use this same grip sans the butt. This forces the user to fight the fish with 100% on the wrist. Even the 8" natives are a battle.

I use the same diameter grip on all my rods. There isn't any reason to use smaller grips on UL rods. Can you imagine Tiger Woods using different grips on each club? I didn't think so and ask myself the same question every time I pick up a factory rod.

The feel of the fish bite is secondary. The primary benefit is knowing exactly what your lure speed is, the blade feel on spinning lures is amazing.