Is it a bad idea to build a permenant fighting butt into the end of a blank. (this is what I did with my last build). If I do I'm moving the handle assembly up the blank by 2 or more inches. So this will change the balance and performance of the rod correct? For my next rod I will add a fighting butt to the end of the blank. I just wonder if it really matters.

On a 9 foot rod, 2 inches at the butt is not a tremendous amount. It all depends on how much length you need out there for casting and fish fighting. It's doubtful that you'd find a tremendous amount either way. There will be a difference, sure, but we're not talking about a night and day difference between either way of doing it.


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Darrell - I almost always make my fighting butts permanent by placing directly on the blank. For me it removes 1 more thing to keep up with, possibly lose. To minimize the impact of the positioning of the reel seat (and I think the impact is minimum any way), I make them short (~1.5") and only bore about a 1 1/4" deep so that I can turn the end solid and not have to fashion and end cap (hope that is clear). This makes them about 1/4" longer than the blank. I use uplocking seat skeletons so I "count" the length of the thread barrel as part of the fighting butt and I make the insert only as long as necessary to hold the foot of the reel I intend to use. It ends up that the reel is not far off from where it would be without the fighting butt and in my experience in of itself does't effect balance, etc.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm going to evaluate the whole thing when my components arrive. Thanks,

Darrell, I add a fighting butt to all my rods. On light rods 5wt or less I use three cork rings. I use exotic composite burl on my grips and a matching fighting butt really adds to the beauty of the rod. I have never had a balance problem. I have used removable butts that use aluminum inserts and actually found them to be much heaver then my perminent cork butts.... Bob.