Mrs Walleye™

"Finally a true performance rod designed for women, produced solely to help find a cure for breast cancer." -Gary Roach

For Diane

Someone very close to us recently discovered she had breast cancer. While we were all shocked, it wasn't something new. Beverly Roach lost her sister, Diane, to breast cancer 10 years ago. While we were making pink colored rods for fun, she wanted to use them to do something. This product line was concieved, and with it we will escrow and donate $5.00 per rod to the Breast Cancer charity designated by Bev at the end of each year.

First and foremost this rod line will help find a cure. But to be true to our roots, and those involved, we were not about to manufacture a poor quality product just to get it done. We felt we could make a high quality rod, and still be able to give a sizable chunk back.

In late 2007 we began work on the product line, with some basic samples, and we were hoping for a partnership with one of the major foundations, like the Susan G Komen Foundation, or Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Unfortunately, we discovered they were not interested in a partnership unless we could give them guaranteed money up front, and sign a huge contract. We guess donations are big business now, and they only want the biggest donors. Beverly was outraged. In light of this, we decided we would go forward anyway, and let Bev decide later on who the money should go to. She's found there are many, many organizations that are dedicated to finding a cure. At the end of 2009, we will post here on this website the amount collected, and to whom it was donated.

If you have bought one of these rods and would like your name listed as a donor when we submit our donation, there will be a link on this page by June with a form you can download, sign, and fax to us for inclusion.

Based on the Mr. Walleye® Series product.

When we started working on this product, Bev told me that it better perform and feel as good as Gary's. I wasn't about to argue. Many of our own friends, team members, and associates told us they were esctatic to hear we were going to have a women's rod, because there wasn't one on the market that's worth a darn! It seemed that women's rods were something marketing departments came up with to sell rods to women, and they'd dress them up all nice and fancy, but put cheap materials and workmanship into the product. Hardly any of them actually had a graphite blank.

100% Graphite

So we began with the 100% graphite in our Series blanks. If they're going to have the same performance and feel, they need to start with the same blank.

Pink!

Pink is the universal color of breast cancer awareness, just as the ribbon is the universal symbol. We also found many women we asked all said they'd want a pink rod. We also heard about baby blue, and lavender, but we'll leave those colors for later years. So pink it is. Pink blanks, pink reel seats, pink wraps, and there's even pink in the irridium coloring on the guide rings.

Irridium Guide Rings

Bev said the rods had to look amazing. Look, pink is a nice color, but we needed something else that would make them fashionable. Enter the irridium guide ring. The ring actually changes color in the light, as it refracts light like a prism. It ends up giving off a rainbow appearance, that shimmers in the light.

Ferrule-less 2-piece Designs:

There is nothing that detracts from a 2 piece rod more than the ferrule joint. Usually situated between the stripper and 2nd guides, it creates a long dead spot on the rod, and due to it being between two other guides, the dead spot is accentuated. Gary solves this problem by removing the ferrule, and allowing the joint to exist inside of an existing guide. This results in the rod pieces being two dissimilar lengths, but preserves the action and performance of the rod. Because the winding wrap around a guide stem is deeper than most ferrules, it provides for a more secure mount which results in less breakage and an overall better feel to the rod. Most anglers cannot tell the difference between our 1 piece and 2 piece models by feel alone.