Building The Rodfather True 3 ~ Finally A Perfect 3 Weight Rod (drc#23 MHX 8' 4pc 3wt Fast) 16Apr23-22Apr23

It's been a long time and several attempts to find a gr8 3 wt fly rod for the quiver, but I kept trying. The recent Endless Wisdom (St Croix) is awesome, but a "weaker" 2.8 ERN; the Brookie (Rainshadow) is gorgeous and casts spectacularly but carries a somewhat high swing weight than desired for a 3 wt @ 9.52; the Lightening Rod (China) is excellent in many ways but I built a less than favored (by me anyway) western cigar handle for it (my mistaken attempt to lighten weight). Enter the Rodfather True 3, RFT3, an 8' 4pc with nice full wells custom handle, perfectly powered @ ERN 3.3 and it sports a Fast Action AA of 70°, a light weight of just 3.1 oz, and a feather-like swing weight of 7.5 oz. I'm pairing the rod with the lightweight Lamson Guru II #1 and I bought another spool on closeout to load a perfectly mated SA Amplitude Trout WF3F line for it (my other line was an Infinity taper with 100 grain more up front than desired ~ for perfection that is). The True 3 is based on a high modulus graphite MHX blank in raw grey coloring and is a dream to toss (at least on first casts in the yard). MHX blanks are well made in China and come warranted, so cost a smidge more... I've built several and they've been very good. The RFT3 is intended for smaller rivers and streams like Rainbow Falls, Gore, Ark Headwaters, and so on... it is a smidge shorter for tighter quarters and is the perfect rod for chubbies with droppers or smaller nymph rigs, and landing 2-4# fish. I'm excited to use it for post-runoff dries and rigs ~ it should be a great field shootout with the Endless Wisdom.

I started the build with a new handle design based on mixed wave cork rings combined with normal natural and burnt rings. I now favor a design featuring diamonds at least on top and bottom as an alignment aid... plus it looks cool IMO. Here's the new handle from sliced up to glued to turned complete.

I finished the T3 with CRB-based, less expensive hardware, including single foot guides and a small ultralight aluminum reel seat. It is wrapped out in cool blue & grey colorfast nylon using a variant wrap of blue for 50% then spiraling both colors for 50%, except for ferrule wraps which are all spirals.

The new 3 weight balances well with the Guru II with SA WF3F line and measured out so true to my desires, a real 3 weight, it was freaky. It is marked as usual with fish measurement marks. One other rod in the quiver is a "True" variant and that is my spectacular and go to 5 weight, the True 5 ~ when something is so dead nuts on like this, I repeated the naming idea.

Yeah; let's go fishing.