Ok, you have your outfit : rod, reel, backing, line, leader and a few flies.

1.  How do you put it together?

First, get some good wax (not candle wax since it has all sorts of fragrances and oils) and lightly coat the male ends of the ferrules.  This will keep the rod from flying apart when you are casting and make it easier to take the rod apart when you are through.  Yes, it’s magic.  Orvis has some they call, strangely Ferrule Wax- the ferrules being the male and female ends on the rod pieces that fit together to set up the rod.  Their wax comes in a small round green container. 

In putting your rod together, most of us start at the back and move forward.   The first two sections are easy, the third section a bit more of a reach, and the fourth section almost impossible.  But consider this.  Put the smallest two sections together first, making sure by sighting down through the line guides.

Next, take the next section and add it, again sighting down the “barrel” to see if they all line up.  The little dots on some rods are nice, but nothing helps doing the fine tuning more than looking down to make sure you are straight.  Make sure everything is straight before you secure the rod sections with the final little push.  So, now you have three of the rod sections together.  Secure the reel to the butt section and finish by attaching the other three pieces which have been joined already to form one piece.  Note you are not having to extend your arms into the next county which would be the case if you started at the butt end and worked forward.  Starting with the top two sections, then the next section and finally the butt means you never have to stretch your arms more than a few feet.

One question over which there is much debate arises here.  Do your simply push the sections together or do you twist them together?  There are expert witnesses on both side.  Lefty Kreh, among others, and G; Loomis rods recommend twisting the pieces together.  This is tricky if you want all the line guides to be in a straight line.  The last thing you want to do is use a line guide as a handle to help twist the pieces together.  So it is that Sage Rods says twisting may twist the carbon fibers in the rod and ruin them.  They suggest that you simply push the segments together.  In addition to not harming the carbon fibers or possibly causing a line guide or two to twist out of alignment, pushing them on doesn’t make the connection quite as tight so they are easier to take apart.  It might be wise to check your connections now and then because the force of casting can cause them to slip a bit and that can lead to breaking the ferrule.  That is not fun.

But you don’t want to keep your rod assembled into one piece for extended periods because it will make separating the rod even harder.  If a rod gets stuck, be careful in the amount of force you use.  Also, you always want to pull straight out with no bending of the rod pieces.  If necessary, squat ever so slightly, place the stuck segments behind your knees and pull.  You will get a straighter pull in this unnatural stance.  If you get someone to help you, have the two of your overlap your hands so each of you has a hand on each of the two pieces.  This will help produce a straighter pull and will prevent you from exerting too much pressure. 

Getting line through the line guides can be a lot easier than most people make it.  Those of us who have fished with conventional tackle (spinning and baitcasting) know we have the monofilament line to run through the line guides.  Heaven forbid that we lose our grip on the line.  If we do, all of the line slithers through the line guides and winds up on the floor.  Rats and other expressions of exasperation.

But with fly rods, doing it that way is stupid.  Strip off about 15’ of fly line onto the ground.  Get to the head of the fly line (no, not the tippet or leader- the fly line).  Double the line and push it through each guide.  If you lose your grip, the loop will open enough to get stuck in the line guide and will not be piling up on the ground.

Pull the rest of the line on the ground through the guides. Tie on you fly and go fishing!

Just as in casting, the exertion of brute force will seldom solve the problem.  Always use steady but increasing power to try to put the rod together and take it apart.  It’s that simple.

And since we haven’t mentioned it before, if, by chance, you have forgotten to take the clear sleeve off the rod handle, do it now.  The clear sleeve left on with not allow you to grip the rod correctly and it certainly will not allow the cork handle to develop the build up of sweat, grime, fish-scales & juices that are the marks of a much-loved and often-used rod.  It not a sign of slovenliness but of dedication to the sport.  Bobby Sands has written that when he makes a rod or buys a new one, he even adds some cigar ash to the cork and rubs in it.  When I make a rod, I save as much of the residue from enlarging the holes in the carbon arbors that fill the space between the rod blank and the reel seat to rub into the cork to give it a head-start on looking like it is a respected and much-loved rod.  The body oils on either sides of your nostrils works extremely well, too.

Don’t forget to check out the resources of Fly Fishers International at www.flyfishersinternational.org.

Also, Google this and other topics of interest and go to YouTube for seemingly endless videos.