TRB Hall of Fame

Hi Everyone,

My name is Jeff Shields (aka Shieldski).  It is a nickname that was given to me about 10 years ago by a good friend of mine and it just stuck.  Started Shieldski Customs in 2007.  My website is www.shieldski.com

I'm 37 years old and live in Austin, Texas.  I have never been married and have no children (that I'm aware of... lol). 

I work for 3M ( the Post-It Notes company) for my day job.  I have been building fishing rods for less than 2 years.  My Grandfather gave me a custom built rod that he had made for me when I was 10 years old, and ever since then I had been fascinated with the idea of building a custom rod.  Unfortunatly he passed away before he could pass his knowledge down to me.  So when a buddy of mine told me he wanted to start building his own rods, I jumped at the chance to join in.  So he purchased some DVD's, I purchased some DVD's and books and we just studied and watched and learned as much as we could.  Then I just got some wood dowels and started wrapping, and wrapping and wrapping.  Then it was too late.... lol. 

I'm actually a very slow builder.  I have decided that I don't want to make a lot of money in this venture and I don't ever want it to feel like a job, I want it to stay fun and interesting.  So I only work on one rod at a time and the customer gets 100% of my attention while I'm working on their custom rod.  I actually just finished rod #12 and have 13-17 already lined up. 

The first rod I ever built was a stand-up tuna rod that I built for myself.  I posted it on the internet and got 3 orders from it.  And now, pretty much every rod I post on the net gets me another order.  So it's slow and steady for Shiledski, just the way I like it.  I charge a premium for my work, since I am not relying on the business, so I would much rather build rods for people that appreciate my work and the time I put into each build.  So whenever I get a potential customer that says "can you build me X rod for X amount of money?", I know that's not the customer for me.  When I get someone who would rather talk about the kind of butt wrap they want and not even care how much I'm going charge or when I can have it done, that is my customer.. .

I spend much of my time fishing off the Texas coast.  A little piece of paradise called PINS (the Padre Island National Seashore).  It is 63 miles of nothing but beach.  No houses, no condos, no nada.  We are so lucky in Texas to still have such an amazing resource, and still be able to DRIVE on it !!  We mainly target shark when beach fishing, yakking our baits out to the blue water.  I also enjoy fishing off my kayak (fresh or salt).  But my favorite has got to be offshore fishing for large pelagics, especially the kind I can eat.  I've caught the sailfish and marlin, now I'd rather target tuna or some other type of amazing table fare.

I build mainly salt water rods.  Many have been 10 foot shark rods for fishing the Texas coast to keep our lines out of the sargassum weed.  I've built one bass rod, and am about to start another.  A few beach heavers.  Much of what I do is acid wrapped (or some funky Shieldski hybrid of all the different methods I've learned).  Never built a fly rod. 

OK, I know I wasn't the first to get this done, but I wasn't the last either... LOL.

Tight lines, Shieldski

-- Edited by Jeff Shields at 15:43, 2008-08-13