Frozen Puppy Return with Custom Ice Rod and Summer Rods

Frozen Puppy is back with more models of ice rods and a line of summertime rods for bass anglers. For Chris Maples, owner of Frozen Puppy Custom Ice Rods, it all started out as a hobby in 1999. Maples built custom ice rods to fill his idle time. Living in Michigan, Maples was exposed to ice fishing and realized the demand for custom built ice rods. Like numerous other entrepreneurs, Chris Maples used his basement as his production area; however, flooding in his basement forced him to move out to the garage. His business continues to grow more and more every day. “Frozen Puppy continues to be invited to sport shows in the Midwest states and we are having more articles being written about us in magazines,” said Maples. To keep up with demand, his son Jack is building and wrapping ice fishing rods along with his other son Scott who works on PR and media contacts.

Two ice fishing rods that are new for this year is the Bluenose Elite Series Rod and the Snotcicles Rod. The Blunose Elite Series Rod come in medium light actions with lengths from 28-inches to 18-inches. Blunose has a 5 ½-inch Texalium graphite handle that comes in a variety of colors including green, blue, or red. Anglers can then pick matching thread for the guides according to the handle. Each rod has a black EVA foam butt cap, fore grips with a solid carbon blank, and Pac Bay micro eyes. The Blunose was designed for finesse ice fishing smaller ice fishing jigs tipped with live bait like wax worms or maggots. The Snotcicles ice fishing rod comes in 24-inches to 18-inches in length with a 4 ½-inch black EVA foam handle. The solid carbon blank comes with Pac Bay micro guides. Snotcicles was designed with a very light action for fishing jigs with live bait.

The other new endeavor Frozen Puppy (www.frozenpuppy.net or phone (517)784-7692) has ventured into is summer rods; translation, bass and panfishing rods. “The demand is there for a custom built rod; we will continue to build ice fishing rods, but also build rods that the weekend angler or tournament angler would want to fish with in tournaments or for fun,” explained Maples. The Blackwater Custom Rods have been well received in the bass fishing community. “The Blackwater Rods are available in both spinning and casting models; whatever the angler wants. The angler can also decide on what style guides they want from traditional to micro guides,” said Maples. The Blackwater Rods are built with RX8 plus or RX7 high quality Batson Blanks. “What we are doing is making quality rods that weekend anglers can afford to buy and fish with or tournament anglers will fish with,” said Maples. Now with the complete line of rods for both summer and ice, Frozen Puppy’s Custom Rods look to grow even more in the upcoming year.

Written by Brad Wiegmann.  Brad is a professional fishing guide on Beaver Lake and a freelance outdoor writer.  Contact him at (479) 756-5279, www.bradwiegmann.com, or by e-mail at bwiegmann@bradwiegmann.com.