I have a customer that wants me to put a butt cap that he can add weight in the butt cap. He wants a 4 to 7 weight freshwater trout rod. I can find fighting butts for rods and some butt caps that are 0.83 inches ID that you can add up to 1.5 oz. of weight to, but nothing to fit a 16 mm fly reel seat. He tells me that he saw this in a rod at Bass Pro Shop that you can put quarters(25 cents~0.95 inches or 24mm) in to add weight.. Can anyone help me as per what he is talking about. If nothing else I am going to stop at Bass Pro Shop on my business trip Oct. 12 and try to find what he is talking about.

Ed Smith

What he mentioned is a slip over cap. (big and ugly) In bass pro's web site type in this item number 38-400-240-00

I would think that a fly reel could be selected that would balance a trout rod without adding extra weight. If absolutely necessary, I would try to epoxy a little lead inside the blank at the butt end of the rod. I know that fuji makes a better looking butt cap for adding weight than the slip on kind, but these are designed for being the butt cap on a regular casting or spinning rod. I am sure that some of the creative guys here will have a way to make a removable fighting butt that can have weight added (maybe using the style of fighting butt that Tom wrote about in rod maker a while back could be modified to allow for weight to be added).

I think he'd be happier if he had you set the rod up to the reel he's using. There's a couple of ways to balance out a fly rod that looks nicer and adds little extra weight in essence you build with a reelseat with threads on both ends and move the reel back and forth till he gets what he wants.

Does he understand that the Wt rate on the rod has nothing to do with the actual weight of the rod? A 4 wt rod is meant to cast a 4 wt line and a 7 wt meant to cast the much heavier 7wt line. simply adding wt to the reel end won't make a difference.

You may already understand this but it wasn't clear from your post.

Yes, he understands that a 4 wt rod is meant for 4wt line etc. I suspect he wants one that he can vary the butt weight to compensate for several different reels but I don't know for sure. I like Spencer's idea as the best way to accomplish what he wants and still look nice.

Thank all of you for your comments. They have all been helpfull!

Ed Smith