That depends a lot on grip shape. For many folks, there is a sweet spot on a grip shape related to their hands and/or personal preference. So moving one's hand to change the balance, while effective, may put the hand in a place on the grip that some users may feel is uncomfortable or less effective.

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Talk about balancing rod and reel makes sense when referring to spin, spin cast, and conventional casting reels. The only thing that will change this balance point in use is casting a different weight lure, bait, or sinker. In fly casting the rod's "balance point" changes as the amount of fly line being aerialized changes: it changes continuously during every cast. I am mystified by the concept of the "balance point" of a fly rod while the rod is actually being used to cast?

The main use of the rod isn't in casting, but in fishing. Once the line is on the water, it no longer has much if any effect on the rod's balance. At that point, a rod that is overly tip-heavy or butt-heavy can be tiring to use and tends to create bad habits.

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Good point, Tom. As I thought about it I realized that for over 60 years I have instinctively grasped the rod further up, away from the butt with my non-reeling hand while I am fishing. I can instantly balance almost any rod/reel outfit this way and I don't have to add, remove, store or carry any extra weights whatsoever.

I suppose that is also one advantage of something like a Ritz grip on a fly rod - you can move your hand up or back without overly changing the feel of the grip itself.

Lots of options available in terms of balancing a rod without having to add additional weight.

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So many fly rods I have cast feel just wonderful after a very short learning curve. Good casters make it all look so simple. And they can do that with a bevy of very different rods. An old soft, kinda heavy fiberglass, once you get used to it can be a blast for an hour or so. All day??!!?? Maybe not. "A man can't have enough fly rods!"

Hey guys I found some interesting work done by an engineer and posted on his blog related to this. He measures the weight and sizes of a bunch of guides and also the finished weights etc. Unfortunately he doesn't go too deep into how different guide affect the "feel" of the blank. It would be really nice to see a similar treatise that builds on this work but shows the differences in CCS numbers, rod weight, and swing weight on identical builds except for the guide train. If I'm allowed to post the links I'll happily do so (Tom?) but since it's not my work I can't just copy it here. Plus a lot of the best info is in the charts and tables which wouldn't copy here anyways.

So not sure if this thread is still going or not but im a newbie to rod building and im going to be building my second fly rod. im trying to figure out what kind of guides to use and after reading this thread I still don't hahahaha both sides seem good. But any imput from you guys would be appreciated, if you would like to message me instead of starting the whole thread again that's fine too. The rod I plan on building is a 9'6" NS6 by Thomas and Thomas. after reading the thread it seams that single foot guides seam to win based on weight and overall sensitivity / action of the rod. If you were to build the ultimate rod for chucking big streamers for big trout sparing no expense what guides would you guys use? size number of guides etc... and pardon my ignorance if I missed anything, like I said newbie here. Thanks for the help