To put a reel seat on or not is a matter of choice for some of looks or style for many others it's about performance. Not all reels are the same and most custom rods are built with a reel sized to fit it ,the angler and the use. When you put a different sized reel on the rod spool size,weight,shank length and line test all are different therefore the distance between the reel and the ist guide are different. Most anglers can hardly tell the difference .It's like driving a ferrari or a neon to work every day at 35 mpr. The only difference to most is how people look at them as it's kinda hard to feel any difference. get on a race track though and look out.I've built custom rods since the early 70's and most of the surf rods built up to 90 were without reel seats due to the styles and different reels anglers used.The old coffee grinders were huge compared to the Sustains and so many other braid freindly reels of today which are very close in size.The old reels also were all over the place weight wise up to 30 oz or better without the line on them.Decide what your gonna use the rod for most then go talk to someone like Mike at MnD to get his advice.No reel seat gives you loads of room to play and learn with. a good grafite seat is comfortable and works good. BUT all reel seat wear out in time. Once on a rod it's not very practicle and it's very expensive to replace.Ron

Hooked, do a search on 'Fuji FS Plate Reel Seats' and you'll see what they are. Rather than taping your reel directly to the blank, a plate style seat is a low profile mounting platform that affords quick-change capability of the reel that taping the reel to the blank does not (and in addition you retain all of the desired characteristics I point out in my previous post). Typically, you tape the plate to the blank at your preferred location (I whip mine on with thread and epoxy) at three points on the seat (front, middle and rear).

And as Stripermaineiac points out, seats wear out over time. Untaping (or cutting off) and replacing a plate style is simple. A collar style is epoxied to the blank and a project to replace.

Those Fuji plate reel seats are sweet.Got a bunch of rods with them on them.

I don't like 'em. The reel just never feels as secure as it does with a proper Fuji seat...I even thread wrapped mine on with grip tape underneath. Went through a phase as I was trying different things out...but I'll always go with a regular seat from this point on.

-spence

Do most guys run no seat just on their surf rig? Or do you do this on light tackle rig as well (7' spinner or a dasting rod)

In the 60,s and 70,s there were a couple blanks made by Fenwich and the 8 ft Lami sb96 3m all were cork tape with Mitchell 410 s on them or Penn 710 s for light stuff.I still have a few that I use. most that have reel seats now are there as advertisement so to speak as I build custom rods for people and they like seeing them the way they like them LOL I like them with out but both work good.