When mounting the reel seat on a spinning rod is the seat mounted uplocking or downlocking and does it make any difference? Thanks

Dave,

The most common is uplocking.

The reason is that most folks hold the rod right at or just ahead of the reel foot while fishing. If the locking nut is under your hand it can be both uncomfortable and prone to working loose.

Good Luck!

Buddy Sanders

It's a custom rod so do it whichever way you like best. The Fuji 18 NPS reelseats, I like to mount downlocking, because I think they look better and are more comfortable that way. I haven't had one loosen on me yet.

I make mine all downlocking. That way, when I use the DPS seats, I can make the seam between the rear hood and the cork the exact same o.d., and the angler can't hardly feel it under his/her palm. As mentioned above, the best solution is to use an NPS seat downlocking, which completely eliminates any seam/nut under the hand at all.

I must just be talented, but every time that I use an uplocking spinning seat, the heel of my hand works the nut loose.

I just posted a picture of a NPS mounted down locking. As mentioned above, when matched with a rear grip that flairs slightly upwards, the angler's palm rests primarily on the seat and has a slight indention for the rear of the hand - kind like the rear of a full wells grip on a fly rod. Very comfortable imo. The credit for this set up goes to Tom K and the article in Rod Maker for his Smallie rod. I just adopted it as well for the pictured light inshore rod and will most likely use it in the future for other set-ups.