I have a Lews popping rod XXX heavy 7'6" that I have owned for nearly forty years or so. Rewrapped it and used it to take several thousand bluefish and hundreds of Spanish for king mackerel fishing. Also some nice Stripers on the OBX when the Stripers were all over the place oceanside. This Lews rod is pretty well beat up and is real heavy compared to today's graphite because it was made of fiberglass. I bought it at Atlantic Tackle the tackle store that existed before Terry Stewart set up shop. When Terry opened his Nags Head store he operated out of the small building for a while and then tore it down and built his current operation which has been very successful for his family.
My popping rod has been retired, it has a butt wrap on it back when I put butt wraps on my rods in the 1980's. It has those black plastic foam grips that were in vogue back in the day. It would be a real chore to make it look presentable so I just tucked it out of sight and told it that it was time to rest up. Kind of like my 8600 and 9000's it is time to rest.
I had another Lews rod just like yours I used an ABU 4500 on it. I remember the handle with the black ribbon effect. I left it at a friends house with some other sticks, but never went back to get them and the home was sold. Lews was big in the 70's and early 80's. Had not thought of that stick until you posted your picture,
If you have other rods or broken rod sections you can fit and epoxy a section of the blank and lengthen the existing Lew's blank after you cut the reel seat off. I have done this a fair amount of times with pleasing results. If the taper on the extension blank is off a little just use masking tape to make it fit and then epoxy it in there for good.
If you strip your blank down and sand it down carefully and add an extension you have a lot of options at places like Mudhole for replacement butts and you can hide the extension work behind the new cork.
My popping rod has been retired, it has a butt wrap on it back when I put butt wraps on my rods in the 1980's. It has those black plastic foam grips that were in vogue back in the day. It would be a real chore to make it look presentable so I just tucked it out of sight and told it that it was time to rest up. Kind of like my 8600 and 9000's it is time to rest.
I had another Lews rod just like yours I used an ABU 4500 on it. I remember the handle with the black ribbon effect. I left it at a friends house with some other sticks, but never went back to get them and the home was sold. Lews was big in the 70's and early 80's. Had not thought of that stick until you posted your picture,
If you have other rods or broken rod sections you can fit and epoxy a section of the blank and lengthen the existing Lew's blank after you cut the reel seat off. I have done this a fair amount of times with pleasing results. If the taper on the extension blank is off a little just use masking tape to make it fit and then epoxy it in there for good.
If you strip your blank down and sand it down carefully and add an extension you have a lot of options at places like Mudhole for replacement butts and you can hide the extension work behind the new cork.
