Pete Maina Signature Series Musky Rod Repair
While rod repair is at least a yearly occurrence for me, nothing major of course, but a few dings here and there happen and it’s important to stay on top of them if you want your gear to last for years to come. You don’t normally come home from buying a brand new rod wanting to repair it. Unfortunately, such is the case with the Pete Maina Signature Series Musky Rods.
The holes you see pictured above could be part of the manufacturing process, but is highly unlikely since I’ve never owned a rod with such a hole and every photo I can find of the Fuji TCS real seat (example 1, example 2) is lacking such a hole. It just doesn’t make sense from a manufacturing or design process. Not to mention that the hole is off center, has a suspicious looking unfinished lip, almost like it was drilled out and not sanded down, and the simple fact that quite a few of the rods on display had their triggers broken off at this hole.
So because I was tired of looking at it and feeling it, I decided to do something about it. While I may not recommend doing this to your rod, it’s the solution I came up with using items I had around my house that I knew were suitable for the job. All you’ll need to replicate this repair is a few plastic bags, some tape, a round file and some car bondo. What, you don’t keep bondo in your medicine cabinet?
Then just file out the hole a bit, maybe a little extra tape so you don’t get bondo all over the place, especially on the cork. Mix up your bondo, do this part outside because the fumes are pretty noxious, you’ll only need a little bit since it isn’t a large hole and start filling. Be very careful, this stuff generally sets in about 3-4 minutes so work carefully and diligently, don’t worry about excess because you’ll need to sand it all down anyway. Let cure for about 20-40 minutes and you’re ready to sand it down and remove the tape.
Either Pete Maina, missed out on the quality control of these rods, and is quite possibly kicking himself for them being “Signature Series”, or Bass Pro Shops manufacturing process is about as obscure as their naming conventions. I might even go so far as to say they have a mystical drilling gnome wandering about their factory.
We’ll see if it breaks, and how it performs, as we run it through the Northern Pike Gauntlet.
For more photos of the Pete Maina Signature Series Rod Repaircheck out our gallery.
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