A while back I put up an article explaining how I made my pvc fly rod tube for under $10.  It's here: Fly Rod Tube  This weekend I finally got around to finishing it.

Sometimes I hike back to places where having the rod built is nothing but nine feet of frustration.  At those places, I will throw my fly rod tube in the back of my vest until I get to the water.  At the water, I take out the rod and stash the tube in the bushes until I am ready to leave.  I might as well have left the tube in the middle of the trail, since it was impossible to hide being stark white... well, and be able to find it again.

This is my solution.  A camo'd fly rod tube.  Took less than 10 minutes of actual work.

This is what I started with (or ended with in the previous article Fly Rod Tube)

The paint I used is pictured above.  The black and green don't really matter - any brand will do.  The secret sauce is the Rust-oleum textured, multi-colored paint that looks exactly like sand.  A closer picture of the can is later in this article.

I started by very roughly spraying a base of green.  Let it dry... really.

Please read on... continued on the next page to keep the image load time down.

Then, I roughly covered most of the remaining white spots with black (flat black).  Again, let it dry.  It doesn't have to be perfectly dry, but paint runs look dumb.

Moved to the sand colored outdoor paint. Since this paint has a great flat finish, I used it after the green and black to dull it down.

I did this cycle three times - green, black, sand.  Each cycle I used less paint than the cycle before and focused on crevasses.  You can probably do it with one color cycle, but hey - I'm trying to impress people here.  (not really, I was just being a perfectionist)

With this stuff it's very important to hold the can back from the target surface - about half again as much as with normal spray paint.

Took this while the tube was drying.  For my money, this is the best paint I could have used for this project.  It's shiny because it's wet... after it dried it had the desired flat finish.

I added a strap that you can buy just about anywhere.  It's just a nylon shoulder strap with velcro loops at either end.

I love the way it came out, and can't wait until I need to stash it again.