No hurry on the mail thing John. Whenever its ready. Mike T set a plumb 1089 aside for me to replace the one I broke.
My assumption is that this reef is just Patrick's first place after leaving the marina , not his only one. I agree the Sabre 1088 would be a good rod for him too. I loved that 1089 and got that empty stomach feeling when I broke it! Oh well. I had no trouble throwing good size eels on it. I think a beginner would tend to rip some eels off on casts more than he would with the 1088 but eventualy he'd get it down.
I now have a 7 foot St Croix and a 9 foot 1089 for building projects over the winter. I've always used almost all black and maybe a little gold for my home made rods. Its hard to mess up all black! I might actually try a fancy wrap on one of them though. I would love to learn to make the diamond wrap Mike T puts on my rods and i'd also like to learn to do the chevron wrap Wayne did on the Breakaway I got from Tres. I heard that CMS actually holds classes over the winter for rod building. Something like 1 or 2 days a week for a month. Its a 45 minute ride but in the winter I seem to have more spare time. Wonder why? <img src="/Images/Happy_Face.gif"><!--e1-->