Ideal rod length is relative to the task at hand. Stand up rods used for tuna, halibut and other large fish are purposefully built short to give the fish less leverage and mechanical advantage over the angler that has to pump them up from the depths. Casting and hook setting ability are not high priority considerations in this type of fishing which is altogether different than designing a walleye jigging rod or a fly rod for trout.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Duane, I agree with some of the advantages you’ve listed, but a longer rod (reel to tip) does not offer “mechanical advantage” or better leverage to the fisherman. He (or she) is at the short end of a lever arm and the ratio is not in his favor. Some of the mechanical advantage can be regained by increasing the rod length behind the reel seat, decreasing the ratio.

Generally, the longer the rod, the more leverage you are giving the fish. This leverage effect is why rods for big fish get shorter and foregrips get longer. The point nearest to the tip that you hold the rod is your point of leverage (fulcrum?). Note what you often do on big fish or snags,,, slide a hand up the rod higher to get additional leverage,
Gets more complicated really if you factor in the effect of the curve of the rod, but the shorter rod will still give you more leverage than a similarly bent long one.
All this is also why long rods tend to be lighter and much more flexible than short rods. Can you even imagine trying to land a 100lb+ tuna on an 8 foot broomstick actioned rod? If you tried it, tell me your hand doesn't go WAY up the rod in desparation.

Good points, many I never thought of due to my being a freshwater rod builder. Leverage I was speaking of was mainly NOT fighting ability leverage, but the leverage of hook setting ability. The longer the rod, the more line you can move on the hookset. It does get more complicated, but I can say that I'll never own a carolina rig rod thats under 7'3" and at the same time a shorter rod is better for close distance accuracy casting like spinnerbaits for example.

On the weight issue....I've built several rods with acrylic handles, and I have the same rods with cork. The acrylic weighs WAY more, but I actually prefer the sensitivity of the acrylic over the cork even though it's a heavier rod. I cant believe the acrylic, being heavier, is less sensitive to some, too big a pill for me to swallow :-)

DR

Duane,
No, braid has much higher elasticity. It will stretch much less than mono for a given applied force. Or another way of looking at it is that mono is much more plastic as opposed to elastic than braid.
You are right it does get more complicated when the characteristics of the rod are taken into consideration but I think that you had better get a good bottle of wine or a good beer to help you swallow that pill with.
Dave
As far as the length is concerned, if you look at a rod as a class 3 lever, with the fulcrum at the butt end and the applied force at the reel seat, then the longer a rod is the more sensitive it is, that is assuming that as it gets longer it does not get heavier. If it gets heavier faster than it gets longer then the sensitivity will go down but if it gets longer faster than it gets heavier the sensitivity will go up. It is a question of the increasing leverage versus the increasing mass.
I thought that a shorter rod would be more sensitive until Tom argued with me about it and made me think it through and then I realized that he was correct and the longer a rod is, assuming the length increases more than the mass increases, the more sensitive it will be.
The longer rod does give the fish more leverage but that is a different issue than sensitivity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2007 12:50PM by Emory Harry.

elastic (comparative more elastic, superlative most elastic)

Capable of stretching; particularly, capable of stretching so as to return to an original shape or size when force is released

Emory,

Braid has no memory and almost no stretch. How can it be more elastic over a plastic that DOES have memory and does have stretch?


DR

Duane,
I understand your problem, it is not intuitively obvious. Think about modulus of elasticity being a linear relationship between stress over strain, stress being the applied force and strain being the amount of deformation. The higher the elasticity the less deformation for a given applied force. Braid will deform much less than mono for a given applied force. Plus the deformation of mono is non-linear which means that it is more plastic. By definition elasticity being a linear relationship between stress and strain and plasticity being a non-linear relationship between stress and strain.
Also what we are interested in when it comes to sensitivity is the characteristics of the line along the plane of the line. 90 degrees out from the plane of the line the situation is entirely different. 90 degrees out from the plane of the line the elasticity of braid is extremely low, lower than mono but that is not the plane that will determine the sensitivity.
Does that explanation help?

Dudes,
You guys are way to complicated. I only meant that sometimes why would you use an SCV blank for let's say jerkbaiting, when you should use an SCI. More weight. People don't understand application versus weight. As far as balance I never balance a rod with added weight. Nor do I build a handle to a certain length to balance it. I think balancing is over rated. When was the last time you felt like you just can't make that last cast of the day because of 25 extra grams towards the tip. This long string of posts just sounds like a bunch of crazy. This craft is simple and I am amazed at the knowlegde of you guys, but at what point are the gains noticable? When building a jerkbait rod, it will never balance with out weight addition because if you decide to use a rod of6'6" or longer in a glass blank, with a typical 7-8" handle it is always tip heavy. Even with spiral wrapped Ti guides and gettting by with as few guides as possible. I've never missed a fishy because it was out of balance either. I never seem to get too tired either, but than again I'm probably in pretty good fishing shape. I'd like to hear some replies as not why you do the things you do, but how has it benefitted you in catching fish, the reason we build these things.

Bryan;
If you go back to the first page and reread my post it contains one of the reasons I balance my flipping/pitching sticks.
Below is another reason, and in both cases it effects my fishing and when using balanced rods, it improves my fishing.

The other major factor for me is fatigue. I bass fish competitively, some years fishing 150-200 days a year, three four days in a row.

When the fish are on a strong flipping/pitching bite, after 7-8 hours with that rod in my hand, with tip heavy rods. By the end of the day I notice a lot of tiring in my wrest, also burning in the shoulder of my flipping arm. Which effects my casting accuracy and that decreases my catch rate.

When using rods that I have balanced. I eliminate a great deal to all of this discomfort in my wrest and arm. Even though the rod is noticeably heavier. Multiply that by three or four days and you'll understand why I balance my rods.

Emory;
I understand what you are saying with your theories on mass, weight, and length.
But in the field under actual use conditions I have found for me at least, that balancing a rod increases my ability to detect bites better. I would contribute that to the rods being more sensitive.
But if what you are saying is correct (and I’m not saying it isn’t)
Maybe there is a point were the increased bite detection of a balanced rod overrides or is superior to the sensitivity of the lighter unbalanced rod.

I have read your article in Rod Maker magazine, and found it very informative even though if I remember correctly (I may have to go back and reread it) I did not agree with every thing you said.

Emory, I may be with Steve on this one regarding weight/balance/sensitivity.

A neutrally balanced rod for me means that it is perfectly balanced leaving my 1st finger's tip lightly resting on the handle. This, I believe is more sensitive than if my first finger is exerting significant force in pushing the rod back. If so, it may be that a heavier rod may technically be less sensitive but be practically more sensitive when taking into account physiological response. My guess is that when one's muscle is exerting more force, one looses sensitivity. Of course, I'm not a pro so this is conjecture.

What I like is a rod that is neutrally balanced around my 2nd/3rd finger when there is no lure. That way, as I reel in without fish, all that I feel exerting on the tip is the force of the lure against the rod. And if there's a fish, all that I'm feeling on the rod tip is the fish. This is MERELY a preference - it just feels 'relaxed' and right that way to me. Again, it's subjective.

Under these conditions, I like a neutrally balanced rod.

Mo

Mo,
You could be right about the amount of applied force at your fingers and sensitivity. I know very little about how the nerves in our fingers work but I have to say I am suspicious.

At the risk of being repetitive, I'll join in for a moment if I may.

We've have pieces and parts of this thread as other threads before. It always breaks down into two sides - (1) lighter is better, before all other considerations (to the extent that as little as the weight of the thread used to wrap the guides is an "issue") and (2) weight is one factor among many and for some builders, not a primary issue at all, but an added benefit of creating a custom rod.

For starters, it might serve us all well if we remember that almost all of our rods are going to weigh less than almost any comparable store-bought rod. The reasons are the lightness of the blank we start with, balance in-the-hand, and the components we use, among others.

We have a number of customers who remark on the lightness of our rods but they are considerably more interested in the action and power of the rod for its intended purpose (i.e., surf, saltwater trout, etc.). Lightness doesn't necessarily produce casting distance at the heavier end of the recommended lure weight. Lightness isn't necessarily the solution to landing a heavier fish than you expected. Lightness doesn't actually equate directly with sensitivity in the strike, although it's a part of the puzzle. It's interesting to note that the catalog copy for this year's rods emphasizes different features from last year's, some as lighter, some as more powerful. If you believe the copy, last year's lightest rods and most sensitive rods are now pool cues by comparison. The idea is to market the product. There's a significant market for the latest-and-greatest, especially if it's endorsed by the latest tournament winner or TV personality. But I think maybe that's not the custom builder's market.

I have a customer who wants a particular rod for a particular purpose. He wants it light and fast, similar to the commercial model he has seen. But his ideas for the design of the handles (for example, oversize, full-grip as opposed to split-grip) are contradictory to the "light" requirement. We could scrimp on the number of guides but that would destroy the action. We could use the lightest guides made but that would put the rod out of his (and most folks') price range. We could (and will) minimize the wraps but stay within his color scheme and produce a beautiful rod. What to do? Well, if you hold this rod at the butt, it's heavy. If you hold it at the tip, it's heavier. But if you hold it at the balance point (without the reel, that's about 4" ahead of the foregrip) it's seriously light. If you add the reel (spinning, in the 4000 or 5000 class) lightness is then a function of overall weight. And so we settle on balance as the differentiating feature.

We almost never add weight to produce balance. We design the rod to achieve the balance the customer wants. The impression of lightness is maintained. If lightness is the holy grail, then adding weight sort of seems counterintuitive, no?

So, I respectfully submit that Emory is right. He certainly has the technical expertise to support his points. But as has been said above, in practice rod design is a series of compromises. Again respectfully, I don't subscribe to the idea that minimum weight is the primary goal of designing a rod, but I do think that minimizing weight is a desirable byproduct of rod design.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

RUSS:

WELL SAID.

RON.

I agree with russ 100%. You design a rod to achieve a certain set of parameters. Weight is something that we do NOT have 100% control over. there fore for your glass rod applicaions and other building aspects, our rods (custom rods) will be lighter than most commercial rods, yet not lighter than others of different apps. I recently built a 7' crankin stick on a Lami MB841 or something like that. It is a 3oz blank. I also built a c-rig rod of comparable lure weight measurements on an SCV blank. The crankin stick was noticeably heavier to a sensitive hand mainly because glass rods tend to be more tip heavy. Though does a glass rod need to be sensitive, NO. Some people do complain about being wore out after throwing dd22's all day, I say throw them every day for 5 days and tell me if you're still wore out. I recently fished a tourney where I threw a jerkbait for 6 days straight. It was tiring the first day, but come tourney day after 8 hours I was just getting warmed up. You need to use the muscles. USE EM OR LOSE EM. Any body heard of atrophy? Get in to fishing shape it is the best thing you can do yo make you a better fisherman, the rod is just one piece of the puzzle to make a great fisherman. Later, bryan.