I recently built a spiral wrapped rod for a guide in British Columbia as a gift. It was a Forecast SWB70H. I used Ralph's method. The guide thanked me and said it was really nice but that he wished that all guides were on top. I asked him to try it and he said sometime he would. He ended up breaking a rod on a charter trip and decided to use mine. They were fishing in 250' of water for Halibut off Vancouver Island. The guests told him that they preferred the spiral wrapped rod to his. So he now wants three more but he wants the "tip softer". The blank I used is 7' and rated Mod/Fast Action and Heavy Power. Can someone suggest a blank with the strength and length but with a more responsive tip?

Joe Milligan
Seattle

Joe, try the same blank in a SWB70MH. It's a little lighter but still plenty for halibut and it does have a softer tip. I've built a few of these up for halibut and they work really well.

Jeff Hunter

I don't have a lot of experience with them but I believe what you want is a true "live bait" blank. It is my understanding that these models have very fast actions and quite soft tips. If you were to do a search here I would think you would turn up quite a bit of information on them.

Some thing in a moderate action would give you more flex. Just above those blanks are mod action blanks