Thread: Rawhide king/Cobia Fishing Rod

I recently acquired a Rawhide 7 1/2' King/Cobia fishing rod. Cant find out anything about it.
Anyone have any info on these rods?

@fshntime, I just saw this question. If it’s not too late, I’d like to comment.

I used to built 10’-12’ surf rod using Featherlite Rawhide blanks. Mine were mainly used as pier rods to fight big reds and jacks. The blanks were stiff as broomsticks and you could make a bull red go where you wanted it to go. Tough, stiff rods were needed to throw the 8 oz. surf sinkers (Sputniks) and 4-5 oz. of cut mullet we used for reds. The heavy surf sinkers were necessary to keep the bait anchored in the really heavy waves Galveston sees in October and November. I wish I could find a good rawhide rod.

BTW, you may know this, but they got the name because a very thin layer of leather was wrapped into the glass. I also made what they call Trout Rods in Texas, usually a 7’ heavy rod with a medium action. With a weighted popping cork you could make good casts with live shrimp and they were very good rods to use a Gotcha plug or heavy king plugs. But, they never caught kingfish on the piers when I lived there. Kings were strictly offshore fish since the water at Galveston usually looks like chocolate milk. Water clarity was the first thing that impressed me about GS. I had to drastically alter my techniques when I started fishing there.

I hope this sheds a little light on your rod find. That was a good catch.

There were rods called Roddy rods that some people called rawhide blanks. Made in lots of different actions. I have a couple and they make exceptional pier rods. Not sure how they got the exact name rawhide, but the seam where the glass ends from being wrapped around the mandrel would have the look of the edge of a piece of rawhide.

On the Featherlite brand of Rawhide rods, you can see the layer of leather in the ends of the blank. I don’t know why the company is called Featherlite, the rods were heavy. The ones I used were black in color. What color are the Roddy rods?

Originally Posted by musket

On the Featherlite brand of Rawhide rods, you can see the layer of leather in the ends of the blank. I don’t know why the company is called Featherlite, the rods were heavy. The ones I used were black in color. What color are the Roddy rods?

All the ones I've seen or built have had almost a wood grain look to them. I have one that is a light blonde color, then I've seen them really dark and look almost like mahogany.

Roddy brand was supposedly a Penn-owned brand at one point but not necessarily Penn-made.