Lumber River Scouting Trip

Last week I went to N. Myrtle Beach SC for a conference. Since the route down crossed the Lumber I decided to take a extra couple of hours and scout out possible places to camp and fish. Below Southern Pines and Aberdeen I first crossed Drowning Creek, a pretty little black water creek that is the headwaters of the Lumber. My first stop was to be the Chalk Banks section of Lumber River State Park near Wagram. Wasn't able to check it out as it is only open Thursday-Sunday.  I did stop at the boating access on the other side of the river at 401/Raeford Rd.

At first glance it has the appearance of a placid, flat water swamp. Actually the current was absolutely ripping here. When I checked later the rate was double the average flow.  At this level it would be a fun rec paddle but hard to fish due to the need for constant boat correction to stay out of the trees. Even with the river out of it's banks there's not a trace of sediment- the water looks like clear iced tea.

The original plan was to stop in Lumberton but due to time constraints I decided to head down to the Princess Ann section of Lumber River State Park. This is a very nice site with a great boat ramp, trails along the river and a playground with some open space.  Definitely a nice spot for a weekend camping trip. 

The cypress seem larger here with more Spanish moss and there are live oak trees. This part of the river is known as 'Griffin's Whirl' and the current near the bank is flowing upriver.

Finally I headed down river to the town of Fair Bluff, just above the SC state line. Very friendly, relaxed place. There are a couple of places to eat and there are extensive boardwalks across the swamp and along the river. Would be a nice place to visit for lunch when staying at the State Park.

The Lumber is scenic even in mid-Winter and would be a nice rec paddle even when the water is high. For fishing I would want lower water levels. Would probably be especially nice here when the cypress are in Fall color.

Rod Butt Mod Revisited...

I got some useful feedback on the kayak fishing rod butt mod on ncangler.com and also, while it seemed sturdy enough, I wasn't happy with the lack of an arbor or the 5-minute epoxy I used. So I cut off the oversize butt (which was too big to fit in tube-type rod holders) and re-did it using better materials. One comment I got was "what about rod balance?". The ergonomics when casting from a seated position is much better and I didn't notice much, if any, difference in rod balance, but since I was re-doing it I decided to experiment with adding a counter weight. I built up an arbor for the new butt using drywall tape, which is made of fiberglass cloth backed with an adhesive. The open weave of the cloth allows glue to penetrate for a strong bond. For the adhesive I used U-40 Rod Bond, which is very tough but retains some flexibility. For the counter weight I rolled out a piece of weighted putty sold for use on pine box derby cars and slipped it inside the rod blank. The butt cap is from Jann's Netcraft.

This worked out fine but I wanted to see if I could go further with the counter weight idea so I picked up a roll of lead tape which is sold to fine tune balance on golf clubs and used it to build up an arbor on another rod I was modding.

The added weight at the butt end gave the rod better balance in the hand- it has a lighter tip feel now. A nice improvement.

Kayak Fishing Rod Butt Mod

I'm a big fan of the Bass Pro Shops Micro Lite rods.  Although listed as fast they are more of a moderate action. It's easy to feel the rod loading for accurate casts even when fatigued or when the adrenalin is flowing casting to visible fish. The forgiving action also helps with landing bass on 4lb line without breaking off. A great value for around $50. On my last river float fishing trip I mainly used the 7' Light action model which worked great except for the ridiculously long 8" butt section which forced me to hold my arm at an awkward distance. The problem was compounded by a  new fishing PFD with somewhat bulky front pockets.  By the end of the day my shoulder and arm were feeling the strain. Longer rods with shorter butt sections are ideal for kayak fishing but this combination is difficult to find in an off-the-shelf rod.  Since the Micro Lite is an affordable rod to experiment with I decided to do something about it...

I grabbed the rod and a set of calipers, went out to my shop, and dug out a box of long-neglected rod building parts. The rod grip was almost exactly one inch and I was lucky to find a stash of fighting butts with the same diameter.

I used an Exacto saw to cut through the cork down to the rod blank, then cut off the butt and used a pocket knife to remove the excess cork. Even with it's ultra fine teeth, the saw did a rougher job than I would have liked:

I wanted  a cleaner look so I tried again using a single-edge razor blade with a zip tie as a cutting guide.

This came out much better. Time to put it back together. I am omitting a step that would be important on a heavier rod where stress would be placed on the butt when fighting fish. Rod supply houses sell rolls of narrow 3/16" masking tape. Besides taping on guides, it is used to build up an arbor that matches the inside diameter of butt while allowing a gap for epoxy. One of these arbors would be built up at each end. I'm skipping that step because I don't have the tape on hand and it's a light-acton rod so hopefully it will hold up OK. Here I'm about to mix 5 minute epoxy on a Post-It note (it won't soak through) and apply it. I don't want squeeze out so I will keep it away from the outer edge. Then  align the parts and hold it together with force for- wait for it.......5 minutes :) Actually I held it for at least that long and then tested the residue on the Post-It to know when it had set. The epoxy will still feel a bit tacky- that's OK.

Finished up with a bit of sanding:

This is the end result. Looks pretty decent. You can see that the  quality of the cork is better on the butt than the rod grip. The new ring will probably darken up and match better with some sun exposure.