When it comes to making custom fishing rods, Barry Weaver employs many skills. Weaver alternates among being a woodworker, an engineer, a lathe operator, a technician and an assembler. And when it ...

It was familiar fishing advice in an unusual setting. Because I wasn’t standing on a boat, but in the shop of Snake River Custom Rods owners Ricky and Goldie Prieto. And the line I was keeping tight ...

Chet Kiekhafer’s business requires the accuracy of an engineer, the steady hands of a surgeon, the creativity of an artist, and the mastery of an avid angler. Kiekhafer of Hutchinson incorporates each ...

CHISHOLM — If there’s ever a tornado warning for this Iron Range town, Mike Lesch will likely be safe. That’s because he already spends a lot of time in his basement shop, where he turns drab sticks ...

The man on the other end of the phone was noticeably hesitant, perhaps even a little embarrassed. He had spent 34 years in the quiet, comfortable background of the sport-fishing industry, most ...

Getting a custom-built rod from Wayne Fowlkes always came with a bonus. Fishing stories. Fowlkes loved to hear them, loved to tell them. “I remember the day I met him at his shop to have two rods ...

Dick Zrudsky will customize a fishing rod -- free -- for anyone who can catch a fish bigger than the one he caught in 1969. Zrudsky makes and designs custom fishing rods from his Englewood home. He ...

Does a fish really care how cool your fishing rod looks when it's fighting to get off the hook? It suffices to say, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't fish with some style while out on ...

Entrepreneurs are risk takers. When it comes to investing and creating *** business, you must be creative. Problem solvers and I've been waiting for that aha moment of there's *** problem that needs ...

After selling his eighth or ninth custom fishing rod to the same man in Oregon several years ago, John Patrick Rivera offhandedly said “I hope you’re happy with the stuff, and the fishing is good.” ...