Some Thoughts on Rod Handles
By CAPT. FRED EVERSON

Some years ago Mark Sosin was in town to film a show with Capt. Chet Jennings. Sosin carries a lot of equipment with him – it looked like he had 20 rods on Chet’s boat. What struck me was they all had very short handles – shorter than what you find on the average store bought rod. He told me he had them all custom made. We discussed our shared preference for short handles and we agreed that manufacturers were behind the curve on rod development. For cast and retrieve fishing with artificials, a short handle is more nimble than one that extends more than a foot behind the reel seat.

A short butt really shines when fishing from a canoe or kayak. Try fishing with an 18-inch handle when sitting down and you’ll quickly see the advantage of a short rod butt. When playing big fish, I simply tuck the butt cork in my midsection. If I want to apply more pressure, I move my left hand a foot or so above the reel seat and put more bend in the rod. You will be surprised at how much leverage you can get with a long rod.

When I started building my own rods some 30 years ago, I approached the job with function in mind. I did not give much thought to thread art and decals and such. Manufacturers were making some incredibly light graphite blanks. If they were doing all they could to reduce rod weight, so would I. I use the absolute minimum of thread, and the smallest size single foot guides on my casting rods to keep weight on the blank to a minimum, as everything added to the blank takes away from its sensitivity.

The rod building process begins with the handle, and I like real cork. Not only is cork traditional, it’s highly functional. It’s lightweight, sensitive, easily shaped, feels good in the hand, and it is durable. Foam handles are fine for trolling rods, but where weight and sensitivity count, nothing beats cork.

I cut my rod handles five inches long. This puts the rod hand nearer to the butt and makes it throw easier. It also uses more of the rod in front of the reel seat for cast and retrieve, and more importantly, for playing fish. In shallow water sight fishing, you simply don’t need 18 inches of butt cork behind the reel. It will hit you in the ribs, catch in your shirtsleeves, and wastes the strongest part of the rod as an arm rest. To top all that, it makes for a tiring and cumbersome one-handed cast – and one hand gives better casting precision.

I also have some store bought rods that I like, and I dealt with the extreme handle length with a hacksaw. If the rod handle gets in my way, I chop it. Forget all that stuff about balance. You can change all that with the size of the reel or by adding weight to the butt. One of my favorite rods is a steelhead rod that used to be 8 ½ feet long. Unfortunately, about 20 inches of length was behind the reel seat. After using the rod a few times I liked the action, but hated the handle. Out came the hack saw and I cut the butt back to a more manageable 7 inches. This rod has since become one of my favorites. I even installed a rubber butt cap by cutting away the cork and then building up the blank with masking tape. Cork works easily and rubber butt caps are cheap.

For live bait rods, a longer handle might make sense. If you are not constantly casting and retrieving, the two handed cast is going to give you more distance, and the longer handle is better suited to sitting in a rod holder. I still prefer the look and feel of cork on my rods, but there is nothing wrong with foam handles here: they are generally cheaper and they hold up well. For sardines fished under floats, or for cut bait around the mangrove shadow line, the longer butts don’t get in the way as much as when fishing with artificials. The longer handle also helps jack rambunctious redfish and snook away from roots and pilings and such.

Wooden handled rods are pretty much a thing of the past, but they can be functional. My tarpon rods are solid fiberglass with chromed bronze reel seats and hickory handles. I replaced the cheap chrome guides with more durable ceramics to resist corrosion and line wear. These rods are so tough, I doubt you could break one if you tried. Cheap and unbreakable is a good thing when fighting a fish that can weigh better than a hundred pounds.
Modern trolling rods usually come with a choice of foam handles or hard plastic. My preference is for hard plastic hard plastic handles with metal gimbals. Inexpensive rods with plastic gimbals are deceiving. They often look like they should be rated for 80-pound test, but a closer look usually reads something like 20 – 40 pounds. That is pretty minimal for such tough customers as grouper or amberjack. The plastic gimbals will often break in the rod holder, and the blanks are generally softer than they appear. In my opinion, a trolling rod for grouper should be rated for at least 50-pound test.

Picking the right handle for the job is elementary, but it does require some thought. Ultimately the rod handle is about personal preference, and if a hacksaw can solve the problem, I cut away.

Captain Fred Everson is an outdoor writer, fishing guide, and manufacturer of custom flats rods. He will host a 3 hour fishing school at Pirate Pointe Resort in Ruskin on Sunday April 26th from 3 to 6 PM. For more information call 813 830 8890, or email the captain at Ihuntsnook@aol.com.