Montauk eel rod

[jskinner]

Originally Posted by numbskull

I have an uncut 1201L. It throws 1-3 well. Shortening it would likely shift the lower range up a little (since the lever arm to load the blank is less) and cut the upper range a bit (since you are throwing away the stronger portion of the blank…….although GSBs can lob stuff well above their range so you probably wouldn't notice much change on the high end).
The rod at 10 ft is slow. The effect of shortening it is likely minimal on that. Shorter rods in general feel a little faster (since there is less length to unload) but cutting from the butt moves you into a softer part of the rod and that likely slows things down so it ends up about the same. A similar example is a GSB1201M which is apparently a GSB1321M with a foot off the butt. Their upper range is similar, the 1321M does a bit better with light stuff.

Skinner uses large guides that likely add a lot of weight and slow things down further. The guides add load to the rod so it feels like you can cast light stuff better (in fact you can't). I think he uses fireline and a pretty big reel so he needs big guides. If you plan to use braid and a midsized reel you can do WAY better (you should have come to plugfest and seen for yourself what new KLH/M guides make possible).

Lots of new blanks have become available since this cut GSB idea was born. At the time it made sense because it gave you more power and upper range than a 1081L, but was not as stiff (or theoretically as likely to tear eels) as a 10181M. Times have changed, however. If you plan to primarily plug I suspect you can find a 1-3 nine foot blank that will perform better than a cut 1201L. Have you looked into the FSC 1087 or 1086? CTS and Century likely have good options as well.

Thought I'd clarify some of this. My first guide is a 40mm, and it's the only double-foot guide on the rod. From there it's 30, 20, 16, 16 tip, but all of those guides are single foot bsvlg. The total finished weight of the rod is only 9.5 ounces. I use a VS200 with 30-pound braid on it. It has seen 11 years of heavy use with everything from 3/4-ounce lures to rigged and live eels. There are lots of vids on my YouTube channel with it. As I've written about it a few times, it was actually John Scherr who named it "The Montauk Eel Rod". It's nice at Montauk in calmish conditions, but beyond that I use my 1201M there for eels.