Hello all you helpful folks, hope everyone is well.

I have an 12' Ugly stick conventional rod I use for shore fishing for White Sturgeon.
The rod is 12', conventional (bait caster rod and handle is about 27" from butt to bottom of reel seat insert), rated extra-heavy, 30-50lb mono, 6-12oz lure, and I believe it is moderate or moderate fast action.
I am thinking about cutting about 7 inches off the butt.

Here's the thing. I moved over to using a bait caster as I fish from shore and like running 40lb mono for various reasons.
The conventional rod, I guess being a boat rod, isn't really meant for sticking the long butt into yourself and thus my arms have to be fully straight/extended and fighting the fish feels TERRIBLE.
If I sit on the dyke rocks and jam the butt down in a crevice it feels OK but still not ideal. Casting with the long butt is however very nice.

I have another 12' Ugly stick that is almost identical except it is a Spinning rod (handle is about 21" from the butt to the bottom of the real seat insert when the reel is secured), rated heavy,12-40lb mono, and I believe 6-10oz, moderate or moderate fast action.
The Spinning version feels a little less nice to cast with the slightly shorter handle, however fighting fish feels immensely easier with the 7" shorter butt. I am able to have my elbows bent, stick the butt into my groin/gut and the leverage is perfect. It is night and day fighting a fish that weighs more than yourself.

They are both very beefy rods that I cast up to 24oz lead + 6 oz baits at times with all my strength without breaking (yet, lol). Obviously the conventional one casts the heavier weight A LITTLE better.

This got me to searching the forums here and reading about threads about cutting the butt off of rods.
From what I can gather I will lose some power (as in, the extra heavy rating?), possibly some action, but casting weight should stay roughly the same? Most of the info on here is all about cutting the butt off much lighter smaller rods.

The other option I suppose I could do is strip the spinning rod guides off and replace with casting guides. I would leave the reel seat as I don't personally care about up vs down locking, but ideally I could make the conventional rod work.

I am in an apartment and don't really have tools for this, so I would potentially take it to my brothers welding shop, tape it up with masking tape and then carefully saw through with a some sort of fine blade, or just go to a local rod building place and have them help me cut it off quickly.

I was hoping a few people could chime in with their opinions and experience on the matter.

Thanks !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2023 05:39PM by Aaron Wilde.

Aaron,

The rod butt too long.

Take it to your chop saw and chop off the butt.

Time for operation 2.5 seconds.

Seriously, if you don't like the comfort of the rod and if a shorter handle will work better for you, no need to ask anyone's advice. Chop it and enjoy the shorter butt.

Over the years; I have chopped a number of too long rod butts and have never had any misgivingings about doing it.

Take care

I’d chop it in 0.5”-1” sections and test how it feels. It’s a lot more work to extend than it is to get it right trimming it down.

You ride those rods like your hobby horse, between your legs, casting, or spinning, it's a surf rod after all.

If my calculations are correct… cut it down so the reel is 24” from the butt.

What you’ll need…
Saw (preferably a sawzall)
Tarps
Bleach
50 gallon drum
Muriatic acid
Gloves
Goggles (for safety)
Ruler
Marker

Lay out tarps, measure the length, mark it, cut it. Fold the mess up in tarps, dissolve in acid, bleach the area clean. Hope this helps.

All awesome replies. I love rogers answer, haha. I was hoping some people could chime in about what it may do to the power, action, and lure weight rating?

Aaron,
I don't know if you have an appropriate saw, but if you do, this blade is one of the smoothest cutting blades that I have ever had on a saw: +

[www.homedepot.com]

The ultra smooth cut, is all about the tooth design.

I currently have this blade, in the appropriate size for the saw involved; on all of my saws.

Take care

Trimming from the butt will reduce the power, but a 7" trim off a 144" rod is slightly less than a 5% change in length, so I would speculate that it would affect the power, very little. Any trim in length is going to slow the action. But once again, with less than a 5% change in length, I can't see it making that much of a difference with that as well.

I've trimmed 6 - 7" off a couple of much shorter blanks (6'6" and 6' 8" respectively) and I could feel a difference, but they were massively lighter powered blanks than what you're working with. I'd chop it to where it's comfortable to fish with and wouldn't think a thing about the change it's going to make.

And I use a fine tooth coping saw to cut blanks. If you want to wrap the blank with masking tape so the blank won't splinter, fine, But I have never found the need to do that when cutting a graphite blank, A fiberglass blank may be a different story.

And Michael ..... good one lol ...... dissolve in acid .... lol

From the reel seat to the tip of the rod there will be no change.

What changes with a shorter grip is the lever arm from the end of the butt to the grip point and just means it will take a little more force to keep the system in equilibrium.

Robert Sunjara Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’d chop it in 0.5”-1” sections and test how
> it feels. It’s a lot more work to extend than it
> is to get it right trimming it down.

Excellent advise.

To make an even cut, wrap masking tape around the grip, using the tape edge as a guide take a utility knife and carefully score the grip around the circumference until you touch the blank, use a fine tooth hobby saw to cut the blank.
If you plan to install a butt cap use the tape method to cut a even line around the grip and then cut away enough to fit a but cap.
.

Have fun.

Hahaha. Rocket science indeed :P. All jokes aside I am very satisfied and grateful for the replies. I will probably try 1 inch at a time just to mess around with the feel. I'll probably put some sort of butt cap.