COLUMN : THE TINKERER
The bend in Matt Stefan ' s rod is of his own creation : Stefan is one pro who builds his own rods .
PHOTO BY JODY WHITE of fishing rods and wine
Why building your own rods is not only attainable but will make you a better angler
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
If it ’ s creative , national award-winning writer Sean Ostruszka is all about it . He combines mad ingenuity with 20 years of knowledge and experience in the fishing business to design lures for professional anglers and top brands in the bass industry .
D o you think you can tell the difference between a mediocre fishing rod and a great one ?
More than likely , your immediate response is , “ Pfft ! Yes !” And if so , here ’ s a follow-up question : How ?
Sensitivity , right ? Then there ’ s the weight , with lighter often meaning better . And , of course , the action is super important , which we test with the old bend-the-rod-tip test .
But whether you realize it or not , there are probably two traits that play even bigger roles in your assessment – label and price . We ’ ve been conditioned to believe certain brands are better than others , and a $ 400 rod is far superior to a
$ 100 one . After all , it must be to better to warrant a much higher price … right ?
A guy by the name of Steve Levitt tested this theory with wine .
Levitt is a renowned economist known for co-authoring the best-selling book Freakonomics and its sequels . Yet , long before all that , he was invited to be a member of an elite Harvard club , The Society of Fellows . If the club sounds snobbish , you ’ re not wrong . It was a group of Nobel Prize winners and other geniuses who would gather regularly for dinner , enjoying lavish meals and expensive wines .
Well , Levitt noticed he couldn ’ t really taste a difference between the wines at those dinners
28 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2024