Image 1 of 3
Image 2 of 3
Image 3 of 3
A Dark Art
When I got married, I gave each of my groomsmen an engraved hobo nickel. Years later, those nickels inspired a rod a bit darker than that day.
From the heavily flamed blank, to the blood red agate guide, and of course the engraved skull in the butt, this rod is mean and seductive. Hours of love went into designing every detail, hand-turning the ebonized cherry reel seat and cottonwood grip and wrapping in a jet black silk with multiple trim details.
As Hiram Hawes said of a bamboo rod, “It’s a useful thing, beautifully made.” And I didn’t build this rod just to be a wall-hanger. Crafted from my Four Horse Series convex taper and named after the outboard John Haywood kept in the trunk of his sedan, this rod is a medium-fast workhorse. The result is a rod that will load with less than 20 feet of line out of the tip but with enough backbone to reach far beyond. Of all our rods, these feel the most like a natural extension of your arm and make the casts at the end of the day as effortless as the first
And to make an already special rod even more unique, this rod won first place in the Southern Rodmakers Gathering’s Challenge Rod competition in 2025.
