Hotreelz of Burien repaired St. George!

Bambooflyguy · Sep 21, 2023

I just finished repairing this badly abused little St. George jr. I bought it from the big auction site for $50! The guy was selling it for parts and only two others bidding on it. The spool is worth more than that. I used a piece of 6061 aluminum and hacked and filed for days……and days. I had a brass ring with the exact same diameter as the original crushed agate/bezel instead of replacing the entire agate guide. JB Weld’d the pieces back together, I left them a little lumpy for strength as the first attempt I sanded too much off for looks, lost the strength. But hey….it’s fishable again!

BigSplashTom · Sep 21, 2023

Looks pretty dang good. Much better than GE.

troutstalker · Sep 21, 2023

Good buy and nice work Steve!

Bambooflyguy · Sep 21, 2023

I lined it up with a 3 wt and lawn cast with a 5’5” two piece Hotrod……50’ and accurate! Going fishing tomorrow with 9 fingers! Crappy weather coming……

troutstalker · Sep 21, 2023

Sounds like a nice combo. Easy on your finger and good luck tomorrow.

Bambooflyguy · Sep 21, 2023

Dang troutstalker……you sound like my wife! Kidding, I know I need this finger to heal! I’ll just try to catch little trout…. ;-)

Mike Monsos · Sep 22, 2023

Great save Steve!

Bambooflyguy · Sep 22, 2023

Thanks Mike! Hopefully get to hear it sing today….

Kado · Sep 22, 2023

Great work Steve. I envy your ability to refurbish what others feel unusable. It's a vanishing talent.

Bambooflyguy · Sep 22, 2023

Hey thanks Mark. I call it being cheap…..unreal prices for vintage Hardy’s! Glad I bought mine years ago when they were more reasonable.

Tim Cottage · Sep 22, 2023

Nice going Steve
How to take a totally mangled reel and turn it into a much less mangled and totally usable reel.

Bambooflyguy · Sep 22, 2023

Thanks Tim….I felt sorry for the badly abused little reel. It just needed some TLC and a lot of shop time!

Bambooflyguy · Sep 22, 2023

So today I put jr to work! 8 trout 11”-17” on the indicator! Missed a bunch too. Six of them I had to get on the reel just to hear some British Hardy music…..sang about as much as Ringo did…..fun!

Bambooflyguy · Sep 30, 2023

Today we fished a high elevation drive to lake….7 bows and 7 brookies to net with a lot of misses. All on dries with my 5’5” Hotrod and the St. George jr. One hot fish almost made it to the 8” of backing left on the reel….sure sounded great!

BigSplashTom · Oct 1, 2023

Bambooflyguy said:
Today we fished a high elevation drive to lake….7 bows and 7 brookies to net with a lot of misses. All on dries with my 5’5” Hotrod and the St. George jr. One hot fish almost made it to the 8” of backing left on the reel….sure sounded great!

Understatement, "sure sounded great!" That was pure music slightly interrupted by your WaaaHooos!
We fished until stars filled the sky and temps dropped into too dang cold. I fished the first bamboo rod off the bench yesterday and completely struggled with hookups. C&R 4 brookies and missed so many strikes. Redo rod casts nicely but think I need to work on some hook setting timing issues with the rod or possibly new glasses. Yikes.