Looking at building a bay rod for trolling. Main target will be stripers or rockfish depending on what you call them. I plan on using aluminum butts for the handle and reel seat and eva or carbon forgrips. I have some really well know rod builders around here, but they didn't seem to incline to help(They got burned before by an employee starting a company). They start with a RCLB or SWB batson blank. What I don't understand is these are all 7 foot or longer blanks. They cut them down, but where? and why? One piece of advise they gave me was, build and fish it. I will probably be using turbo guides on them with an acid wrap. Just wondering what blank to use and where to cut if needed?

I fish the Ches. Bay for rock. My go to for rock fish trolling blanks is the American Tackle AXGC60H. If you think it needs cut, I would recommend cutting more from the butt than the tip. Like if you want to cut 6 inches cut two from tip and four from butt. Try the blank, you will not be disappointed.

Capt. Craig Freeman
Grading Scales Sportfishing and Back River Rods

Thats a 6 foot rod, I cant imagine cutting much off it.

Correct. No need to cut it, but you had asked about cutting so I through that in there.

For some reason a lot of the captains here on the Chesapeake like 5"6" rods. I agree that the 6ft is probably a good choice but if you wanted to cut it I would only take a couple of inches off the butt.

I was wondering why you would start with a 7 foot rod and cut it down?

Me too. There must be five thousand different blanks for sale. Seems like enough choices without having to experiment.

What I think they might be doing is cutting the 12 inches or so off the butt that will be replace with an aluminum butt, then cutting the tip to there spec. This seams to me counterproductive on a composite blank.

Just remember when using a aluminum butt, the outside diameter of the butt of the rod blank has to match the inner diameter of the ferrule of the aluminum butt.

Bob McKamey
Mud Hole Custom Tackle
bobm@mudhole.com

I made a whole lot of trolling rods for Chesapeake Bay fishermen, including several 7 rod sets for charter captains. Blank choice depends on what you're going to troll. A bunker spoon rod fishing mono and a rod designed to troll 12 oz of lead and an umbrella rig with wire line are two very different animals... Given that usually you are dealing with a lot of weight, short blanks are probably going to be the majority of your spread with maybe 1-3 longer rods for the middle of the spread fished further back with less weight. If you start with several 7' blanks, you can leave one full length for trolling spoons, cut one from the tip end for an umbrella rig rod, and cut one from the butt for trolling parachute rigs with less weight (as opposed to ordering three different blanks). For whatever reason- probably what they are used to more than anything- lots of charter captains wanted Lamiglas blanks. Everyone ended up loving slick butts for ease of use with rod holders.

If you give some more information on what you'll troll I can tell you what my clients liked.