casting with conventional reels

[Mattman NZ]

Matt, watch the windows on that building accross from you . Very nice casting  .

Sal

Thanks Sal - I think its pretty safe as its 203 meters from where I'm casting from - and the max I can cast is around the 150 meter mark and only time will tell - and as for balance I've never really though about it Joe but I think it dose make sense.

Rgds

Matt...

[cbar45]

What Does everybody think of balancing the rod before building it? I think when building up a new rod blank you should first find the balancing point and then center the reel seat at that point. I feel that is most important for a good casting rod.


Joe

Joe,
I have long arms and position the reel where I know it will be most comfortable for me when casting and fighting a fish. If I fiddled around with moving it up or down or adding weight to the butt, balance may improve, but at a loss of comfort and/or casting performance. Imho the fulcrum point at which the reel is mounted has more influence on casting than a bare blank's fulcrum point.

Does the rod and reel as a whole perform well for your style of fishing? If so, then I wouldn't worry much about the balance point unless it was impeding upon my fishing in some way. In fact the very first rod I built has a horrible balance point on paper, (way up above the fore-grip and diamond wrap), but for what I do it fishes well. I never even noticed where it balances until I checked it one day out of curiosity. 

In general building for comfort, lightness, and keeping the weight in the upper half down does much to enhance performance. Those characteristics remain constant, unlike a balance point that changes depending on which reel is being used.

Chad

[Reel 224]

What Does everybody think of balancing the rod before building it? I think when building up a new rod blank you should first find the balancing point and then center the reel seat at that point. I feel that is most important for a good casting rod.


Joe

Joe,
I have long arms and position the reel where I know it will be most comfortable for me when casting and fighting a fish. If I fiddled around with moving it up or down or adding weight to the butt, balance may improve, but at a loss of comfort and/or casting performance. Imho the fulcrum point at which the reel is mounted has more influence on casting than a bare blank's fulcrum point.

Does the rod and reel as a whole perform well for your style of fishing? If so, then I wouldn't worry much about the balance point unless it was impeding upon my fishing in some way. In fact the very first rod I built has a horrible balance point on paper, (way up above the fore-grip and diamond wrap), but for what I do it fishes well. I never even noticed where it balances until I checked it one day out of curiosity. 

In general building for comfort, lightness, and keeping the weight in the upper half down does much to enhance performance. Those characteristics remain constant, unlike a balance point that changes depending on which reel is being used.

Chad

Chad: The comfort of the rod is important to a point, but tanking into consideration that balance in important also. Finding the center of balance is a good starting point and if you have to adjust from there at least you have a reference point, matching the reel to your rod is important also. IMHO the balance of the rod and reel is like the balance of a good gun in your hand. I'm not an expert on rod building and admit that I have a lot to learn, and I respect your opinion.

Joe   

[oc1]

The style of fishing has to be considered too.  Balance seems more important in whipping/plugging than in dunking/plunking.  I stick lead in the butt of my whipping rods to balance them to a short  comfortable handle.  Even though it adds weight it feels lighter and causes less fatigue.  When you're lazy you notice these things.
-steve

[cbar45]

Then, too, there are some anglers that feel their style of fishing actually benefits from a rod that is slightly tip heavy--drop shotting with the rod pointed at the water comes to mind. In this case the weight acts to steady the rod such that the slightest pull on the line by a fish is enough to tip it briskly downwards.

If it's necessary to add a bit of weight for balance, I try to make it an integral part of the rod--a heavy-gauge stainless butt cap on an ulua surf rod for example. On longer whipping rods I will sometimes do a simple decorative wrap below the reel seat, between the split grips. It seems this additional amount of thread and finish is enough to improve the balance. But for me all those variables are secondary to a reel that is positioned to allow for comfortable and proper casting.

While placing the reel seat at the rod's balance point is a start, it certainly won't hurt anything to move it up or down the blank a bit should your test-casting necessitate it. Blank manufacturer's know that reel seat placement will likely vary, so they design a blank to work for multiple reel positions. i.e. Blanks are built such that their walls have adequate support for the reel along an entire section of the bottom half.

Chad

[cbar45]

Chad: The comfort of the rod is important to a point, but tanking into consideration that balance in important also. Finding the center of balance is a good starting point and if you have to adjust from there at least you have a reference point, matching the reel to your rod is important also. IMHO the balance of the rod and reel is like the balance of a good gun in your hand. I'm not an expert on rod building and admit that I have a lot to learn, and I respect your opinion.

Joe  

Joe,
If you've ever seen a Michigan-style spinning handle, (short rear grip/long fore-grip), that is one that comes very close to a harmony of balance, comfort, and casting performance. With the reel in place, your hand grips the rod just forward of the seat--right at the balance point of the entire set-up.

Chad

[Reel 224]

Chad: The comfort of the rod is important to a point, but tanking into consideration that balance in important also. Finding the center of balance is a good starting point and if you have to adjust from there at least you have a reference point, matching the reel to your rod is important also. IMHO the balance of the rod and reel is like the balance of a good gun in your hand. I'm not an expert on rod building and admit that I have a lot to learn, and I respect your opinion.

Joe  

Joe,
If you've ever seen a Michigan-style spinning handle, (short rear grip/long fore-grip), that is one that comes very close to a harmony of balance, comfort, and casting performance. With the reel in place, your hand grips the rod just forward of the seat--right at the balance point of the entire set-up.

Chad

Sounds like your describing a fly rod setup. Ill give an example. An 8' rod med action you are intending to use for bait & plug casting with a open reel (Conventional). Would you balance the rod heavy on the butt end?

Joe

[Jeri]

Hi guys,

On the matter of reel seat positioning, I think the greatest aspect for an individual, is the comfort and control that the rod gives that individual. Yesterday a client came in with his wife for a rod, fixed spool reel and to surf fish. We tried several of the traditional heavier designs, and it was obvious that the lengths of the rods were giving her serious problems with the casting. We changed her over to a 12' 3oz rod, and suddenly the whole casting motion got smooth, and she started to achieve distance.

The with another rod, identical to the first, blank the same, rings the same, but with the reel seat positioned down near the butt end, just 8" up, she suddenly started to really achieve distance. The other rod had been built traditional 'surf style', with the reel seat 25" up from the butt end. The simple move from 'reel up' to 'reel down' transformed the rod for her, and her distances were going beyond 80 metres which for someone that had only started learning to cast that afternoon, was pretty good.

The point I would look to make, is to try and avoid convensions and rules, as they restrict the development of ideas, especially in rod building. Obviously the aspect above really only applies in this case because the rod was long, but it is equally relavent; as you need to consider the performance of the finished product in the hands of the individual, and what is good for one, might be a disaster for another.

Cheers from sunny Africa,

Jeri

[Newell Nut]

I have been over here casting with the ulua fisherman for a couple weeks and ripping some long cast with big Newells and long beefy sticks. These are pretty much standard set up that I have I see the most of but there is another style. If you look up Century rods over in UK those guys have the reel down by the butt and they can really rip some mean cast. The videos are impressive.

[CapeFish]

I have been over here casting with the ulua fisherman for a couple weeks and ripping some long cast with big Newells and long beefy sticks. These are pretty much standard set up that I have I see the most of but there is another style. If you look up Century rods over in UK those guys have the reel down by the butt and they can really rip some mean cast. The videos are impressive.

Not just Century, 99.9% of people in Southern Africa fish with reel at bottom with multiplier set-ups and a lot use the same system with spinning reels.  It is difficult to explain enough what a big difference putting the reel at the bottom makes and how much easier it is to handle big baits, big casts and big fish that way. Especially with a trigger winch. Throwing plugs is a pleasure. I am totally boggled when I see a 12+ foot surf rod with a long butt section sticking out and always wonder how uncomfortable it must be to fish with something like that.  As Jeri recommends, challenge convention and try it for yourself.

[cbar45]

Chad: The comfort of the rod is important to a point, but tanking into consideration that balance in important also. Finding the center of balance is a good starting point and if you have to adjust from there at least you have a reference point, matching the reel to your rod is important also. IMHO the balance of the rod and reel is like the balance of a good gun in your hand. I'm not an expert on rod building and admit that I have a lot to learn, and I respect your opinion.

Joe  

Joe,
If you've ever seen a Michigan-style spinning handle, (short rear grip/long fore-grip), that is one that comes very close to a harmony of balance, comfort, and casting performance. With the reel in place, your hand grips the rod just forward of the seat--right at the balance point of the entire set-up.

Chad

Sounds like your describing a fly rod setup. Ill give an example. An 8' rod med action you are intending to use for bait & plug casting with a open reel (Conventional). Would you balance the rod heavy on the butt end?

Joe

It's a two-handed spinning rod that is cast as you normally would, but fished with one hand held above the reel rather than at the reel seat.The following examples as seen on RBO's photo album were built by Ross Pearson. The way he explained it to me is that these float-fishing rods are typically long, and held in the hand for quite a while. Thus a fly-rod style grip with the reel as counterweight helps to combat fatigue.



I brought up Michigan-style handles for the following reasons:

1.They are examples of a setup built to be held and fished right at--or very close to--its balance point.
2.They are examples of a setup which uses one of its integral parts (the reel) as a balancing counterweight.

The balance point of a blank, and the balance point of a completed rod with reel strapped on, are two different variables.

To use the example you gave, suppose I found the balance point of the 8' casting rod blank to be 14" from the butt. I go ahead with gluing on the reel seat at that point and wrapping the guides. Upon casting the completed rod however, I find that my hands are set too closely together to allow full extension of my lead elbow during the cast. Furthermore, I find that the rod seems a little tip-heavy working poppers with my new Super Surfcaster titanium reel. "But why?" I think to myself. "I used the exact balance point so it shouldn't feel this way."

In reality, what happened is that the balance point changed as soon as I wrapped the guides and strapped on my new light-weight reel. This balance of the completed rod with reel attached is more crucial than that of the bare blank--akin to the balance of a completed rifle versus that of just the stock.

Now suppose the situation was the same, but my reel and guides were afixed only temporarily with tape. I would then only need a few minutes to re-tape my reel to another point on the blank, not the balance point, but a point which I subsequently find allows me to cast comfortably and with maximum distance. Satisfied with these results, I can next tackle the task of balancing the rod such that it doesn't feel so tip-heavy working poppers. Perhaps this might be something as simple as using different guides, or switching to a full grip rather than split grips. If it was a spinning setup I may consider trading in my Super Surfcaster reel for the heft of a tried-and-true Penn Spinfisher...

Of course, there are many more methods varying in degrees of complexity, but to sum things up:

A rod with a comfortably-positioned reel seat can later be balanced and perform beautifully; A rod with an uncomfortable reel seat that hinders performance will be just that--even though it was built with care. Figuring out balance per applicafion is important, and imho best done with a temporarily complete setup on which other variables have already been worked out.

Chad

[Reel 224]

Chad: Thank you for your advice, it is well taken and I will take your advice with the next build I am presently working on. As a matter of fact, after finding the balance point of this 8' blank I knew I couldn't use the point as a center point for the reel seat. So I know i would have to rethink my theory of blank balance I guess I put my foot in my mouth with this one.  

Joe

[cbar45]

Joe, no harm done. Finding the balance point of a blank is still useful if you're building a panfish pole.

Fine tuning reel placement to suit your own needs and preferences puts the "custom" in custom rods.

New ideas and theories--even though they may not pan out--are the wheels that move any craft or hobby forwards.

Chad

[oc1]

That's part of the reason I do not use reel seats.  A rod remains much more versatile without one.
-steve

[valkie]

Doing reel well guys.
Went fishing yesterday and used an overhead reel.

Everything was going along swimmingly, casting just nice, getting distance and only a couple of small tangles.

Then I caught the fish.
A 60 cm groper.
Now it put up a serious fight, cheating using rocks to give me a hard time, but eventually I got the baby in.

At some stage during this little battle, the level wind gear had decided to loose a few teeth.
Cheap reel, cheap plastc gearing, but for those who know the reason, it was to perfect my casting technique with a less than perfect bearing filled spool.

The next, and last cast, was a beauty, the line fed off the reel for a good 50-60 meters, perfect arc, wonderful cast.
The bait was hit almost as it hit the water, and the fish ran.
I started winding, but something jammed.
I watched as the line fed off the spool at a great rate of notts, so I tried winding it on again, nothing.
Quick as a flash I grabbed the line and dropped the rod with the intention of hand landing the fish.
NOTE TO SELF
Dont try and bring in a running fish on 30 lb line by hand.
Much blood and 300 meters of line later, I gave up and cut the line.

Now I have to go back to the Penn reel and try to learn casting on a reel far far too good and which line flies off the spool.
That is once my hands heal.

This fishing game is starting to become dangerious, and thats not even mentioning the waves that tried to embrace me and take me swimming.