Sorry for the Newbie question, but I'm in the process of building a 9-foot conventional surf plugging rod, rated 2-5 ounces, that will be used with an Abu Garcia baitcasting reel, and set up as a spiral.

I'm relatively new to conventional surfcasting, and in monkeying around with this thing I've been driving myself crazy over where to put the reel seat. The easy thing would be to put it where it feels best, but my problem is that I don't have enough on-the-water conventional surfcasting experience to be able to ascertain exactly where that is. I'm afraid that if and when I get more proficient with conventional casting, I'll wish I had put the reel seat in a different place.

I may end up using a temporary fix -- using cork tape for the grip, and taping or clamping the reel in place until I find a configuration I like the best -- but I'm wondering if we have any diehard convench pluggers out there who might like to chime in. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

This is kind of hard to explain, but take the rod blank, put the butt where you are going to put it for reeling in the fish, IE middle or lower stomach, then put the tip on the back of a chair or something higher than your butt placement, let it rest there, then for four or five times close your eyes and grab the blank, make a small mark each time you grab it, average out where you grabbed it, thats where you want your reel seat. Hope this helps.

Hi Chris,

Here is how I measure a customer for conventional reel seat location.

While holding the blank parallel to the floor place the butt end into your arm pit as far as it will go. Now run your hand up the blank, where it stops is where the reel seat will go. I set the reel seat so that when you cast your thumb sits on the spool. This will give you maximum extension of your arms while casting. Just like a HOME RUN hitter in baseball.

Capt Neil Faulkner

thats the way i do mine too stick it in your armpit and "ccock"the thumb where your thumb sits is where the reel CENTRE will be its give or take a couple of inches, then when you cast you push with the reel hand and pull hard with the butt hand . This gives maximum "pull bend" to the rod. Saying that though others like a reel "down the butt" configuration that is about 1.5 times the width of the hand but if your not into casting haeavily then the up butt config is the safest easiest bet

Allen

Thanks for the tips, guys. I think I'll try the armpit method, and go from there. I appreciate taking the time to reply to my stupid question.

Hi Chris,

An honest question in quest of knowledge is never stupid. Keep asking. Remember we had to ask questions many years ago but the availability of answers was not great. Thanks to the Internet a newbie can get up to speed so much faster, especially if he gets good answers.

Capt Neil Faulkner

I use Allen's method, with the reel spool sitting where the thumb is cocked. When I used Abu 6500's with the CT frame, this allowed you to really lock the thumb down and over the spool when power casting. The butt in the armpit is what gives maximum push/pull, because it uses maximum reach (push) for the upper arm, and maximum leverage (pull) for the lower arm to pull the butt right into the armpit. Any longer and you smack your rod butt into your chest, shorter and you cramp your pull stroke.

One of the things that I like about rodbuilding is that it keeps you humble. You build a bunch of rods, think you've figured out all (or most) of what you need to know... and then something like this pops up, something that's so simple that it drives you nuts because you think you should know it, but you don't. Thanks, guys.

Do you use plugs that weigh 5oz? On my 1226, which I sometimes use to throw 4, I use all of that length in order to get leverage. But I also have a 10' Lami rated 2 to 5 which really likes three, and I notice that I usually don't need all the leverage and move my left hand up some on the butt. I would test it some but I think I could get plenty of leverage on a 9' rod w/o needing the butt all the way to my armpit. Then again, you can always choke up is the butt is longer than you need, but you can't move your hand farther down if the butt is too short.

Or build it short and use a british thing called a reducer. a length of butt that slips in extending the butt for casting removed while fishing