Hi!
My name is Anders and I'm from Sweden. First, bare with me as English isn't my native languish. I'll do my best. Anyway, I'm a guy that likes to fish and now and than build stuff we fishermen usually need to be effective on the waters. I been making some rods through the years, mostly for fly fishing but also some heavy stuff for those saltwater giants like cod and halibut.
Now I will start a project for a couple of vertical fishing rods. This form of fishing technique has really boomed here in Scandinavia and are still on the rise. The common thing here are to use a boat when searching for species like Perch (small bass), European walleye and Northern Pike but new targets are slowly added to the list like e.g Arctic char and American lake trout.
So to my question, I'm looking for a spinning blank, not longer than 2 m that can be suited for vertical fishing from a boat. The blank needs to be quit stiff and with a fast top action that can handle jigs >20 g and medium plastics (10-20 cm). And can function in depths about 5-15 meters. There's nothing negative if the blank comes in two pieces. ( Sorry for the French mathematical system but that's what goes here in my part of the world)
I've been searching the net and found a lot American brands like mhx, Pac bay, st. croix, Batson and they all have a lot blanks to offer but it's hard to tell from raw specifications which blank to choose.
Sadly we don't have any one here in Sweden that sells blanks of this type so I can’t test them straight up. A couple years back I made a bait casting rod for a friend based on a MHX mag bass Medium/ heavy blank . It turned out to be a great caster and all round rod but the tip of the rod where to slow and soft for pure vertical fishing.
Therefor I hope that you guys in this forum can give me some information of suitable blanks.
Tanks for your time!
Anders

Make yourself à favor an build à Batson RX8 XSW68MX.
PM me if you want Europe seller adress.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2013 01:22AM by Eric MONTACLAIR.

Hi Anders, I'm based in the Netherlands and vertical jigging for Zander and Perch is very popular over here. I have written an article a couple of years back about rods for this type of fishing. Although in Dutch, you can read this article here: [www.dutchanglers.nl] (maybe you can use Google translate)

Stil after many years myself and many other vertical fisherman here like very much rods based on the St. Croix blank 4S63MXF. Mudhole also sell these: [www.mudhole.com]. These are pretty expensive blanks especially with the transportcosts, tax and importduties to Europe but this might be exactly would you need although I would say maximum weight for the jighead is 21 gram (most popular over here for vertical fishing in depths from 5-15 meter is 14-17 gram). I'm not sure if these are sold in Europe. Hope this helps. If you need more info on this rod you can also wright me an email at michel@dutchanglers.nl

Eric: The blank from Batson seems nice. I'll PM you about an european seller. Tanks!
Michel: Nice rods you show at the Dutch site. That finger grip isn't such a bad idea, I've herd about the technique but never seen it done. The blank from St croix will probably work great but to get one from US in 1 piece will cost more than it will taste so to speak. If I could get it at reasonable shipping cost somewhere in Europe, it would be another story. You don't know of any other blanks that would work? This fall I tested a AMS Jackie Farrona vertical rod belonging to a friend of mine and really like it. Hard to tell what kind of blank they build those rod from though. But Something like that blank action would work fine.

Hi guys,
Old topic..
I was wondering if any of you can help me out as i'm about to build myself a casting rod to vertical jig for zander in big reservoirs (UK).
Will need a tool that will work perfectly with 20g and 30g jigs (with 4 to 6 in shads) but will manage 15 and 40 too. Depths between 8 and 25mt.

thanks in advance,
Fabio