Rig weight

[spence]

I know balance is more important than overall weight, and everything is personal preference...But what's the average weight range for a typical 10' surf rod/reel?

I was playing around adding some lead to the butt of my spinner to improve the balance, and was wondering at what point are you making the rig too heavy...

-spence

[Crow]

Find your favorite rod the one that feels best when you really lean on it. Measure the grip/reelseat distance and see how it fits on the 10' er. I believe each person has a best grip length and it rod length isn't as crucial.
Any weight you add to a rod is weight you have to hold up, regardless of the balance. I'd rather be light than balanced.

[bud8fan]

My personal opinion is that you want to get the rod balanced so that your never tip heavy. A rod that is tip heavy will wear you out during an outing. Almost all of my rods have the same butt length no matter what length overall they are. With the one exception of my heaver rod which I made with a longer butt to give me added leverage during casting.
I have played with adding weight to the butt section of the rod to balance my rods and to be honest you dont feel the weight much if its in the butt.

[spence]

Two opposed opinions...well I guess I got what I expected

Interesting enough I've spoken with a few builders that have echo'd the same comments. One said you should be able to build a rod that is perfectly balanced without counter weight and the other said it was normal to add some butt weight...

I guess it's all relative. It felt like it would take at least 3 ounces of lead to balance my rod with the 706z. This seemed like a lot and really makes the rig heavy. Then again it's not that heavy to begin with so I probably won't notice the extra weight.

Thanks - spence

[mikecc]

One said you should be able to build a rod that is perfectly balanced without counter weight

He must have a magic wand.
If the person wants a certain reel in a certain area we have to work around that.
There is a limit to what you can do

[Saltheart]

I'm with Mike T. The rodfs seldom are balanced the way you like. One thing is that just moving a single finger forward a little changes the fulcrum point enough so that its more importatnt than a whole boat load of weight in the but. I think with a very long rod its importatnt to try to keep it from being very tip heavy but again its hard. I find that on conventionals , it all in how you grip them that will balance them out and relieve some of the fatigue you get from a tip heavy rod.

[spence]

I'll just play around until I like it then. If the tendonitis flares up I'll move things around a bit

And Mike, love the 1083. A bit windy yesterday for the light stuff but it still casted like a dream.

I also liked the tape on trigger. If you line up with the plate seat it sits back a bit more than the bolt-on version and is much more comfortable when casting hard.

thanks,

-spence

[mikecc]

Glad you like it.