I'm looking at this rod instead of building that Lamiglas mb1083m. It says "Up to 1 1/4" What's the real rating on it? What's the lightest weight I could cast with this rod? I'm looking at this rod for Bombers, Megabaits, Hopkins, some of the lighter wooden lures and small bucktails. You know. Lighter stuff. For schoolies and stuff like that.

This a good rod for a Stradic 4000?

While we are on the topic of rods. Do you guys have rods "overlapping"? For example. I have the big 10 foot st.croix that I use for Lures 1-2.5 oz. I will be getting this other St. Croix probably(more on that later). And then I'll either have the Batson or the Sabre for larger jigs, eelskin rigs, large plugs, live eels and large jigs.

Now onto why I have to buy store bought rods again. As it turns out, my mom and dad don't want me to work in the dining room. I don't have any of the stuff. I'm starting to feel like I won't build enough rods to make it useful. No cooperation from my parents. I guess they aren't into me saving money as I am. Just a big waste of time putting together all the parts lists, asking those questions, printing out the answers. Bah....

You know, Patrick, as a parent, I'm getting REALLY sick of hearing you bash yours like that in public. You have such a tough life, thewy give you a roof over your head, 3 squares a day, money to buy tackle, and you contribute zero dollars in return despite being 18 and not in any kind of school. Grow the eff up, willya?

If you need to vent about your parents, do us all the favor of doing it to your therapist or counselor. I'm sure I'm not the only guy who's sick of hearing your ungrateful beefs on a fishing web site.

Well you have it allllllllllllllllll wrong.

I love my parents but sometimes they let me get these ideas in my head. For example. When I was trying to get into rod building, I told my mom that not only would I save money, but I would have the coolest custom gear out there because it's built the way I want it. I even showed my mom some of Billy40's rod wraps and she was very impressed. She thought that might be something she would enjoy even. (Shes into that cross stitch stuff). She was also very impressed by the paintjobs of some of the home made lures. Anyways, she was nearly as excited about it as I was. I've asked her to go to Home Depot plenty of times. She likes to go in and look around. Everytime I ask, I get shot down. It's not like I'm asking her to take me to California to go to a boat show. I want to go to a place where she likes to go as well. Any other time, she would want to go.

Well then my dad started to ask questions about it too. I showed him Flexcoat's Speed wrapper II. He almost had a heart attack when he saw the price tag on it.(I wouldn't dare show him a renzetti!) He told me that he could build something of the same caliber at a fraction of the cost.(And he could. He is very talented when it comes to building and fixing stuff) Of course I was happy since it's going to be ALL my money going into this. That was nearly a month, maybe a month and a half ago. Every day I'm saying, "Hey Dad, can we go down to the lumber yard today?" And everyday it's "not today, maybe tomorrow". I told my dad I wanted to have these rods in time for vacation which is in August. Let's face it, my job isn't going to be some high paying one. By the time I have all the money for the rods and the reels and the line, plus some lures for them, I won't have time to build them.

So now do you see what I mean? I feel like they have let me down. They go like they are going to support me, and I don't mean financially, on something and they totally drop it. And if I bring the topic up, they yell at me.

You know what I'm REALLY sick of? Do ya wanna know? People like you commenting on things happening in MY life when you have no "eff"ing clue. Maybe I should become a lawyer so I can afford 300 "eff"ing custom Lamiglas fishing rods and outfit them with 300 "eff"ing Van Staals. So why don't you "eff"ing back off?

If you don't want anyone commenting on your life's issues, why do you always feel the need to bring them up in a public forum? This isn't DearAbby.com

Your biggest issue with your parents is the fact that they apparently don't give you the attention that you obviously crave, so you have to be the bane of the internet fishing world to get attention. You know that bringing stuff like that up will get responses, that's why you do it, so you can just sit back and say, "Hey, at least I got these guys to sit up and take notice, and a flaming is better than being ignored".

I think from now on I'll just be more like them. I thought you had turned a corner and maybe matured--I can see I was wrong about that.

I'm not going to dive too deep into this as I'm tired and about to go to bed but, start doing things for yourself.

A lot of people here, the vast majority of people here, have long jobs that go to pay mortgages and raise families and save for the little kiddie's college fund, retirement, the family vactation, whatever. You might hear someone moaning about "honey dooos" getting in the way of fishing or needing to hide a reel or three but you don't hear anybody trashing their wives or husbands and certainly their parents for that matter. This really isn't the place for that. But now that you've brought it up... Be thankful that you didn't get the boot at 18 since you are not going on to any additional school. Did you thank them for that? What you need to do is really think hard on what you need to do so you are self-sufficient enough to buy your rods and reels and wrappers and gear, after you've kept your car running, the rent paid and the lights on - forget about the wife and kids bit for now. Don't rely on your folks to do that for you. That's not their job. I'm pretty sure they have more to worry about than that and you need to realize how good they have made it for you - maybe too good. Believe me when I say that your "childhood" could have been alot worse...

Be thankful and respectful to your parents and stop bitching about it...

We'll continue later, the baby (Liam) is crying...