Hello,

I’m looking at building an 8’ conventional rod for bottom fishing. My question is how long should the foward and rear grips be, or is going to be my personal preference? Is there any rule of thumb when building 8’ rods on grip length?

Thanks,

Personal preference

Definitely personal preference. If you can mock the reel onto the rod that will get you an idea of how long the butt needs to be and how long to make the grips.

With an 8 foot rod, I would put the reel at 12 inches from the butt for decent rod balance and then use a full grip or a split grip or just a rear grip with no fore grip.

I find that a balanced rod is more important than a shorter rear grip One can add weight to the butt of the rod, but I prefer the lightest balanced rod that I can achieve without adding any weight. This normally means that the rear grip needs to be longer to achieve a reasonable balance on the rod.

It depends on the rods intended use, lure weight, and size of the fish targeted. I would hold the blank like you are fighting a fish with butt under armpit or hip depending on preference and see where your hand wants to go for foregrip. Having someone else pulling down on the tip helps. I learned at the ICRBE from Mike Garone is that with the butt on your hip your arm fully extended on the foregrip is the strongest position for fighting big fish such as grouper, jacks and tuna. Place the reel where it is comfortable to you.