New member, new builder
Thinking about putting a spinning reel seat on a lake trout dead stick. What is a good handle front and butt to use? Or, am I off base with the spinning reel seat?

Thank you,
Mark

New to rod building
Starting with ice rods? I think?
Mark

Is this an ice rod? What kind of reel? What length?

Lol, I guess I was short on details.

Yes, it’s an ice rod, VLine 36” High Class Hooker Walleye blank. Was thinking a bait feeder spinning reel.

Thank you

I haven't built an ice rod since I left MI in the 80's, many like short grips to the point the rear grip is little more than a nub, for Lakers I would think you would want a grip long enough to help isolate your wrist joint, how long that is depends on how you hold the reel, hand size, etc., but you can mock it up and play with it under strain to find that pretty easy. I like the NPS style seats for this, threads forward.

I’m build it for a friend. He doesn’t know it’s coming. He’s done some stuff for me and his birthday is coming up. So, as far as your fitting suggestions, all’s I can say is his hands are on the large size.

We’re not in Lake Trout territory, he heads back to Montana to fish for Lake Trout. He runs a dead stick and jigs. Ten - twenty+ pound fish. I’ve seen pictures of them. They fish fairly shallow bench water.

I’d assume you are talking about a rod for an iFish pro or JawJacker type setup? I don’t know of anybody who runs a true deadstick for Lakers - many rods would be lost down the hole!

For a jawjacker or iFish - I like 3” of handle off the back of the reel seat. It’s enough to sit securely in the holder, but not so much as to put the rod tip too far out from the trigger apparatus. It also doesn’t use up so much of the power and length of the blank under handle.

Mark,
This was a fish caught by a rod building client of mine who was fishing in Canada on Lake Winnipeg. This was his first outing with his new rod.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I built a rod called a target rod that used the top 48 inches of the pac bay solid l action glass saltwater blank that comes from the factory at 72 inches.

The grip was a 10 inch solid cork grip. The spinning reel that the client used was simply taped to the cork grip with 4 layers of plastic tape on the front and on the rear reel seat foot.

Simple, effective and fool proof.

However, if you want to put on a conventional reel seat, use any one that you like. Virtually any reel seat that will open and close properly to clasp the reel securely will work very well to hold any fish that you can catch in the lake.

Be safe

Rick Handrick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’d assume you are talking about a rod for an
> iFish pro or JawJacker type setup? I don’t know
> of anybody who runs a true deadstick for Lakers -
> many rods would be lost down the hole!
>
> For a jawjacker or iFish - I like 3” of handle
> off the back of the reel seat. It’s enough to
> sit securely in the holder, but not so much as to
> put the rod tip too far out from the trigger
> apparatus. It also doesn’t use up so much of
> the power and length of the blank under handle.

Yes, Travis refers to his JawJacker. Your points as to preferring a 3” handle for not pushing the rod tip out too far and using up effective rod fighting power make sense.

Thank you,

roger wilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mark,
> This was a fish caught by a rod building client of
> mine who was fishing in Canada on Lake Winnipeg.
> This was his first outing with his new rod.
>
> [www.rodbuilding.org]
> p/photo/19861/title/lake-winnipeg-lake-trout/cat/5
> 06
>
> I built a rod called a target rod that used the
> top 48 inches of the pac bay solid l action glass
> saltwater blank that comes from the factory at 72
> inches.
>
> The grip was a 10 inch solid cork grip. The
> spinning reel that the client used was simply
> taped to the cork grip with 4 layers of plastic
> tape on the front and on the rear reel seat foot.
>
>
> Simple, effective and fool proof.
>
> However, if you want to put on a conventional reel
> seat, use any one that you like. Virtually any
> reel seat that will open and close properly to
> clasp the reel securely will work very well to
> hold any fish that you can catch in the lake.
>
> Be safe

WOW, really nice fish!

I thought taping reels on a large fish rod sounded spooky. But, you have picture proof! I like the thought of the 10” cork handle as that lets Travis adjust the reel location to his preference vs me giving him a set location using a reel seat. That gives Travis the ability to optimize reel location as Rick referred to with how he prefers to hold the rod whilst fighting the lake trout.

If I may ask, what is a “target” rod? Does that refer to a rod built for a specific purpose?

Thank you

Mark,
I have built a lot of rods for some Canadian fishermen over the years.

When they are going after some of the bigger fish- they have Flash lures that they use and they have decided to call this type of fishing with heavy flash lures - Target Fishing.
I suppose that they target fish that they see on their depth finders with this flash lures.

Take care

roger wilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mark,
> This was a fish caught by a rod building client of
> mine who was fishing in Canada on Lake Winnipeg.
> This was his first outing with his new rod.
>
> [www.rodbuilding.org]
> p/photo/19861/title/lake-winnipeg-lake-trout/cat/5
> 06
>
> I built a rod called a target rod that used the
> top 48 inches of the pac bay solid l action glass
> saltwater blank that comes from the factory at 72
> inches.
>
> The grip was a 10 inch solid cork grip. The
> spinning reel that the client used was simply
> taped to the cork grip with 4 layers of plastic
> tape on the front and on the rear reel seat foot.
>
>
> Simple, effective and fool proof.
>
> However, if you want to put on a conventional reel
> seat, use any one that you like. Virtually any
> reel seat that will open and close properly to
> clasp the reel securely will work very well to
> hold any fish that you can catch in the lake.
>
> Be safe

I'm curious about what blank this was? I seem to be having trouble finding it.

The blank Roger referred to is the one at the top of this chart: [www.utmostenterprises.com]

Note:
If you do use a simple solid cork handle and tape the reel onto the cork, be sure to do the following.

Take the area where you want to place a reel. Then, starting with the bare cork, wrap on two layers of tape that you never remove.
Then, go ahead and tape on the reell of your choice. When you change the tape or change the reel, do NOT remove the 2 layers of tape that is under the reel. This will prevent any cork from being ripped out of the solid cork.
Certainly use fresh tape, any time that you remove the tape over wrap of your reels, if chainging reels and or freshening up the tape over wrap on the reel.

Best wishes Roger Wilson
i