When it comes to making custom fishing rods, Barry Weaver employs many skills. Weaver alternates among being a woodworker, an engineer, a lathe operator, a technician and an assembler. And when it ...

The man on the other end of the phone was noticeably hesitant, perhaps even a little embarrassed. He had spent 34 years in the quiet, comfortable background of the sport-fishing industry, most ...

Dick Zrudsky will customize a fishing rod -- free -- for anyone who can catch a fish bigger than the one he caught in 1969. Zrudsky makes and designs custom fishing rods from his Englewood home. He ...

CHISHOLM — If there’s ever a tornado warning for this Iron Range town, Mike Lesch will likely be safe. That’s because he already spends a lot of time in his basement shop, where he turns drab sticks ...

BACK IN MAY, I drove to Yarmouth, Maine, to visit the Maine Fly Co. I was there to pick up a custom fly rod they’d made for me and to go fishing with owner and founder Jeff Davis. I expected to find a ...

Entrepreneurs are risk takers. When it comes to investing and creating *** business, you must be creative. Problem solvers and I've been waiting for that aha moment of there's *** problem that needs ...

After selling his eighth or ninth custom fishing rod to the same man in Oregon several years ago, John Patrick Rivera offhandedly said “I hope you’re happy with the stuff, and the fishing is good.” ...