Q. Is it proper to add a hook holder to a 13 foot spey rod?

Q. Do most spey rods have hook holders?

Info: I'm building a 13 foot four piece 8wt. spey rod and have no pictures of spey rod handles with hook holders. However, a hook holder came with the spey rod kit.

Thanks
Rich Meumann

Rich , it's your rod , if you want one on , put it on . I don't see how the hook keeper will effect the function of the rod , if that is your concern. If you are thinking that it's going to interfere in the line during the casting stroke , you can always offset it to one side or the other . If the kit was from H&H , Bob always puts one in the bag . Personaly , I'm not putting one on the spey rod I'm building for myself , I don't see a use for it .
Have fun , JHD

Got Fish ?

I own four spey rods and all of them have hook holders. Use a larger size holder if you intend to fish with steelhead flies.

I never put hook holder on a flyrod, its to easy to get the flyline tangeled up in it when shooting line, And the flyline easily gets dammaged.
I use the the first or second stripper to attache the fly and the tippet go around the flyreel. as a bonus you always have a bit of the line outside of the tipp.

Man, what size hook-keeper are you using? I've flyfished for forty years and have managed to catch lines and flies around trees, trucks , my buddie's head as well as my own, and on one memorable occasion my ear, but I have never once managed to get tangled around a hook-keeper while shooting line or any other time for that matter.

I've heard people say they never put hookkeepers on fly rods, but I've never understood why. I have them on all my fly rods and I have way too many. I sometimes use the stripper guide-reel handle technique but only when using leaders longer than the rod. I fish with a very light drag and too often the line falls off the handle. Like Al, I've tangled line on just about everything in sight in 40+ years of flyfishing, including the butt of the rod, but never once on the hookkeeper, not even on the Fuji folding ones. Unless, of course, you count the time when I threaded the line through it when I was a kid and didn't know any better.

Depending on the balance point of your rod-n-reel, it is sometimes necessary to hold a rod half-way on the cork and half-way on the blank over the course of a long day to avoid arm fatigue. A hook holder gets in the way of that.

Better still, make sure that an appropriate reel balances the finished rod, or build the rod to accomodate a favored reel for good balance, choosing up vs down lock, rubber cork as needed, etc