Reel Repair by Alan Tani

This is how I see it - from bottom of the rod to the tip:

Butt cap - gimbal butt cap required if the rod is used for trolling or fished out of a rod holder.  "Rail rods" appear to be mostly used with a plain rubber butt cap - but IMO rail rods are really a different kind of animal to conventional stand-up rods.

Rod butt or rear grip - hard plastic (slick butt) or aluminium preferred for trolling duty, hypalon or such like sometimes used if the rod is intended for working jigs (think the advent of jigging gear has greatly reduced this use case).

Reel seat - aluminium is industry standard, but Fuji types and heavier plastics sometimes seen on lighter rods. 

Front grip - normally quite long to enable the rod to be held further "up the rod" for better leverage.

Butt section - not to be confused with the rod butt (see above).  This is the (roughly) bottom half of the section of blank above the reel seat.  Normally pretty stiff; in composite blanks reinforced with carbon fibre. 

Tip section - the approx top half (and especially top third) of the blank above the reel seat.  Action of tip section varies depending on application.  West Coast rods normally have lighter/softer tips to cast bait, stand-up rods used for private boat trolling have heavier tips to help set big hooks from the rod holder. 

Guides - quality heavy duty rings now favoured for most applications; IMO well-maintained roller guides still have a place where the quarry is capable of removing a lot of line from the reel/through those guides at great speed. 

Tip - roller tip or tip ring depending on what's below it. 

Quote from: Lowprofile on January 25, 2018, 02:33:32 AMOne thing I'd add for a stand up rod is if you're using a harness you should not be touching the handle, at all! Your free hand should be on the reel, pushing on it as you sit back in the harness to gain line and laying line as you reel down on the fish.

This is good advice, with the proviso that when a fish is hooked up, fumbling around trying to get into the harness can be a significant distraction that can easily result in a lost fish if tension is not kept ON.  I prefer the angler to focus on keeping tight to the fish for at least the first few minutes of the fight, and only get into the harness once the fish is peeling line healthily and thought to be properly "on". 

Both points probably even more important when fishing 80-130 gear from the chair - there is time to get into the harness once you're sure the fish is properly hooked and if you don't want to extract roller guides from a new hole in your forehead in the event of line breaking, keep that left hand on the top of the reel and off the foregrip.