One of the very best aspects of our job is the huge kick we get seeing the fly rods customers create on their Epic blanks.
The creativity and endless possibilities always delight and surprise, and this rod is certainly no exception.
This fly rod is built on an Epic 480 Fastglass blank, we call this finish "Nude" it's simply the raw natural S2 glass finished in a gloss top coat. The rod was commissioned by our customer Viktor and was built up by craftsman rod builder Stephen Duff of Duff rods in Australia.
Steve Duff (aka Duffman) has been building rods for the past 25 years, and it shows. The quality of those wraps and epoxy work is really quite remarkable.
This is Viktor's first glass rod and he had some initial reservations that our Epics might feel something like glass rods of old - We know that this could not be further from the truth - but the proof is in the casting...
Hi Carl
Received my Duff Epic 480 yesterday and wanted to share my excitement. What a beauty! The blank itself looks stunning already and Steve Duff did a great job indeed turning it into an amazing fishing tool. I knew from the very beginning what I wanted and I got exactly that. And the quality of craftsmanship is immaculate.
Couldn’t wait to cast my new rod of course. As a passionate fan of fast action rods, I was a bit nervous, but my Duff Epic #4 is a dream to cast. I knew it would be nothing like the old wobbly glass rods and yet the light overall weight, the very smooth feel and especially the fast blank recovery did surprise me nevertheless. Spent over an hour on the lawn and had a big grin on my face all the time. I am already looking forward to showing the rod to my friends back home, who inspired me to get a state of the art fiberglass rod myself in the first place. They all fish Scott glass rods by the way; I wonder how the blanks compare. Hope they still like their own rods after they had a go with my Epic.
But first I have to go fishing. Some of the smaller rivers just north of Turangi will be the testing ground for my new rod in the next couple of weeks.
Many thanks for your support, Carl. And I can’t recommend Steve enough as a master rod builder and for the way he communicates during the building process.
Please find attached some pics of the rod.
Kind regards and tight lines
Viktor
