I have been building walleye trolling blanks on the Batson RDR80M telescopic blank for trolling inline planer boards on the Great Lakes. This blank is perfect for the application! I have a customer who has very bad arthritis in his hands. The RDR80M is just too heavy for him to handle comfortably all day. Im looking for a lighter weight blank that would be close in power and action to to the RDR blank. I was thinking about one of the Batson graphite crankbait blanks or cutting 3" off the tip and butt of the RDR86M but wanted to see if anyone else had any other ideas. I would perfer not to extend a shorter blank, but dont mind cutting something down.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

When you write your looking for a lighter weight blank, i presume in this case you mean to convey your looking for a shorter length rod blank to reduce the lever effect this fisherman with bad arthritis feels when fighting fish. To that end, I think the ideal solution would be the new MHX DR845.

[www.mudhole.com]

You may also wish to consider the length of the rear grip and/or mounting the reel seat uplocking. By moving the reel's location forward on the blank (within the reasonable physical attributes of the fisherman) and utilizing a longer front grip, the lever effect this fisherman feels can be further reduced.