What is the lowest trigger reel seat made for a casting rod? I want a reel seat that basically lets the reel sit directly on the blank so the reel is easier to palm. I have tried all the traditional low profile exposed trigger seats available to my knowledge and haven't found what I want. Anyone know of a lower profile seat?

Would you be better off trying to find a seat with a smaller ID so that it fits tighter to the blank? Have you tried a seat that was a bit too small and reaming it to fit? Maybe I'm missing the question?

Jay

Jonathan,
Have you tried taking as much of the bottom of the exposed blank reelseat as you can off? It will feel smaller, depending on the blank diameter, there isn't much meat on the top. On a reelseat with a 15 mm hole there might be a mm of graphite there. If the blank is smaller you could ream the reelseat offset towards the top to pull it down some, but I think it would be noticably offset on the blank plus everything else would also have to be offset to match.
Quite a few times years ago some customers asked about the same thing, but the reels weren't as "palmable" and low as they are now. Anyway a lot of them were happy just with an angle change in the grip and reelseat that was accomplished by using the Wiebe realseat and cork. (it rolls your thumb a little higher on the reel naturally.) It uses cork grips and reelseat that were drilled offset at the factory, but nothing looks offset on the finished rod.
The good people at Custom Tackle had some left last time I needed one, they could also give you a better discription than I'm doing here.

Thanks for the tips, I guess no one makes the reel seat I'm looking for. Where can you find the wiebe reelseat? I looked on the Custom Tackle website but couldn't find it. Is there a chance that G. Loomis used this reel seat on there GLX line about 5-7 yrs ago? I have a MBR 783C with a reel seat that says gloomis on it and it is lower than any fuji etc. It has the offset cork that is raised to meet the reel seat. I'm wondering if this is a wiebe reel seat?

That's the seat, Loomis just had some made with their name on them. The Wiebe seats were in the handle/grip kit section if I remember right.

Funny, I was just thinking about this subject yesterday. I have a number of old Ambassadeurs, and a couple of older rods with the Featherweight handles. These are the ones with pistol grip, that are not blank through. The design puts the center of gravity of the reel very low, almost centered with the blank. Every time I put one of the old Abus on a blank through, it just feels so imbalanced. I guess it is not possible to get the Featherweight handles anymore, but for the bigger reels, it really was a much better design.
Looked at the Wiebe handles on the Custom Tackle site, but it doesn't appear the same.
Steve Broadwell

Thanks, that is a reel seat I was looking for. I wonder how hard it would be to put a graphite handle on it instead of cork. I still wish someone would make a reel seat that held the reel lower to the blank.

Maybe make one yourself? Tommy tape the reel to the blank. Maybe a really small ID Tennessee handle with an IPS trigger ? Since there isn't what you want on teh market, gotta improvise and trial and error.

I have been trying to modify various types of reelseats and have a couple that will work but they don't have a finished look to them due to the grinding from the dremel. I may try to machine one from scratch when I have time.

I've put graphite tube grips on Wiebes before, the fun part is getting the arbors to match, I did that by using the reelseat as a drill guide, I glued the angle cut arbor to the back of the reelseat than ran the drill bit through the reelseat and arbor front to back. the butt arbor is just a centered arbor.

thanks spencer, I'll try that.

Maybe one of the plate type seats may work ?
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