The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Hello all.

New to the forum and new to cane rods and seeking help and information or catalogue listings and specs to work out what i have and it's line rating.

And hopefully get cleaned up and back on a river bank some time.

At the moment the rod is fairly dirty and needs a good clean but i have taken some photos and measurements.

A Milwards Flycast in 3 sections with a spare tip, rod assembled is 9' length.

Markings on rod.
Decals of make/model. No ink marking for line weight.
Alloy reel seat has "Made in England" and "Milwards" stamped into the butt end.
No sign of a serial number.
Learning my way around the forum and how to post so a few pictures at a time.

I have weighed the rod and sections.

Complete rod 3 sections =194g / 6.8oz
Butt section...............=134g / 4.72oz
Mid section................=43g / 1.51oz
Tip sections...............=15g / 0.52oz (both tips weigh the same)


Hook keeper and Decal

The line guides are magnetic so steel.
The Tip-eyes are non magnetic, very dirty, maybe brass. Glass or clear agate lined.
The large first ring is non magnetic, very dirty, maybe brass and is agate lined.
The ferrules are non magnetic, clean contact surfaces but dirty outer surfaces, maybe black Japanned brass ? or just dirty.


The guide rings are very dirty.
Will try and carefully clean things with some warm soapy water and tooth brush.
As the ferrules are clean inside i won't go mad with the outsides as unsure if it's remains of original coating or just dried up grease residue.

Hopefully someone has some pointers as to age and line rating.

From what little i know the company ceased trading in 1965 and i have found a single text ref to a catalogue entry of 1937/38 for Flycraft rods.
Pre war rods in general featured brass fittings and Alloy fittings came in post war. (this seems a general view point that may be wrong)
I have found some sales images from auction sites for Mk II and MK III so making a wild guess that it "might" be a post war maybe 1950's era.

I suspect it's had a resto at some point or a revarnish so it might be a later rod with some markings/decals lost during restoration.


Thank you for looking, i shall update as i move along as the photos and my limited thoughts may be of help to someone else in the future.

The rod is cleaning up nicely.

Some corrections to first impressions.

Ferrules are brass, they have many layers of varnish and dirt and ageing. It looked like rust pitting and blacking, this is just old varnish and dirt and a bit of work with a dremel mop has cleared a lot of it.
The inside of the sockets are very clean and other than a cotton bud with alcohol have not been touched.

From research the eye-tip rings are original and agate, as is the butt ring. I am unsure if original rings but another forum member has pinged a catalogue link up and it states oval bridge guides and that appears to be what i have.

The rod has been revarnished, maybe rewhipped at some point but it might be from 1937/38 which is older than i expected.

It appears to be Model 8110.

There is reference to ferrule plugs being supplied of an Acorn shape/style and a cloth bag and wooden protective box for the tips, these are all long gone.

Link supplied by @Barbellseeker
https://splitcaneinfo.com/wp-content/up ... 937-38.pdf

Also just reduce that web address to splitcaneinfo.com and there are several catalogues viewable there. I have been going round in circles trying to find information, chasing long dead links or old forum posts around the world where the images have long gone, or the rabbit hole of auction site listings.

I shall update as i learn more and go with some updated photos as i clean up and make repairs.

More chatter over in the fly fishing sub forum, as aiming to keep this a Model Reference topic.