spoonplugger1

From shore I'd look a bit further afield although United may have your blank. Go to Tackletour and check back a few years when they tested the St. Croix 5S76MLXF, I have one I love for your light reel application. It come in all the graphite except SCII I believe so sticker shock neddn't be so bad, even have a two piece version. Nice soft tip for crappie, etc. followed by good backbone for other species. The review was on 10/5/11, received an editor's choice award.

Seeker SBS706 S-glass blank, it has a long history of happy customers for all moving baits. Lots of info out there.

Take the picture of the Aero seat above and turn it upside down. The threads on the seat are the same as the Fuji seats, so if you want to hide the threads use one of the Fuji options like the HPS.

Magnesium reels don't do well in saltwater, or some other corrosive environments that won't effect you, or other reels with a little care.

JimmyJoe, Now that we have you totally confused hopefully I can give you sage advise on who to talk to about a build. He is both a dealer in all the components you need from three good companies, two you've mentioned, but also a builder. Like us he's getting long in the tooth, so he knows about that part of building too. Schneider"s Rod Shop, nice family business and a square shooter. Just remember to feed him as much info as you can about your needs. Your builder can never have to much info. Hope I've helped.

JimmyJoe, Problems like yours make rod building worthwhile, so let's see if we can come up with something. As Mick alluded to, power is probably your problem and not rod action, x fast rods were developed for plugs for 40 years now and they work well, the type blank I'm talking about has been incorporating in four rod types at G Loomis over the years. Hotshot steelhead/salmon, mag bass, walleye, and the Green water saltwater series. Same blanks with different grips/reel seat and guide layout depending on the application. A three pc. version in spinning has been my go to rod for 15+ years. It has caught native rainbows to over 30 inches, coho salmon and steelhead to 20 lbs., one Chinook salmon to 28 lbs., and one day 3 little football 13 to 15 lb springer Chinook while shad fishing with a #1 Dick Nite spoon that is so small it carries a #8 little siwash single hook. It's caught some smallies also, but no LMB. In salt it has caught bonefish, flounder, sea trout, and red drum. The rod is the G Loomis HSR9000-3S. Mag Light power, 6 - 12 lb. line, 1/4 - 1/2 oz. lure weight. As you can see just reading the specs really doesn't tell the story, this plug rod is using plugs less than 5% of the time.

I'd save an ounce and use a SB843-3CG. Get with Batson, they won"t steer you wrong.

Another option is to buy a grip with a larger hole than your blank's OD and just turn the old grip down to a cylinder the same size as the new grips hole. Glue up, slide on the new grip, install a new butt cap and your in business. Get Bit and others have inexpensive grips like I mentioned.

The material comes in different diameters for freshwater and saltwater grips. Salt grips being about a quarter inch or so larger. Measure across the hump. Use wood putty, etc to smooth out the bad areas than apply over, the good stuff will decrease in diameter by at least half, but length stays the same.

Am I missing something? I thought the sleeves went on the reel grips.

My all-time favorite is the Fuji DNPS 20, large enough in OD to be comfortable all day, long enough that I need no transition material, and down locking I have a smooth surface for my hand, just plug the ends and go. If I'm using a full grip, I use the old Lew's reverse taper pattern.

I buy th 17 mm Aero reel seat because it's more comfortable and all standard 1 inch + grip materials you'd use on a casting rod also fit inside.

No, there is no such thing as power and action when comparing blanks from different companies. They are subjective measurements at best, and most relevant within the same company's blank design. Go from MB to some other design and all bets are off. Lastly, I think there are regional influences too. Blanks from the west's cleaner, deeper reservoirs are a bit different from blanks designed in other regions.

St. Croix has a simlar length blank to the Rainshadow. They also had a 5 ft. 9 in. blank to if I remember right, though I don't think I've handled one, back in the 80's some liked walleye jigging rods down to 5 1/2 ft.

I got the impression from your first post that you were only going custom because you couldn't find what you need, so I mentioned something available. Rarely is a custom cheaper than the factory rod of similar materials, not from the quality builders I've been associated with all these years. Delaware makes an excellent point, I've heard good things about the shooter blanks, I've only used one and it was a heavier powered blank than you need, so I can't help you there.

That wouldn't stop me from fishing one of those fine rods, if you haven't fished one you don't know what your missing. The CR721 IMX should be a phenominal skipping rod as it's like powered spin jig rod sure is.

The G Loomis CR series rods have been around for dang near half a century and still are. 6 ft., and sweet casting rods in all the weight classes.

You guys need to get out more, the blanks he needs have been out for decades, G Loomis, GUSA now United Composites, and Lamiglas have all made blanks for this long before anyone heard of Rainshadow. They are a great company, just not one of the industry innovators. Sadly only United Composites still makes those blanks available, look at the UC66LXF and UC70LXF blanks, rated 1/32 the 5/16 oz. lures, 2 to 10 lb. line, and they are easily the most durable graphite blanks, especially with an extra fast action. I've fished the UC66LXF for over 20 years for panfish, SM and LM bass, trout to over 24 inches and a 9 1/2 lb. steelhead as a bi-catch fishing for trout. Just spent some time over at the North Fork Composites site and see they are making my favorite G Loomis pattern in a blank again, the SB5100-1 is a redo of the old SJ700 IM6. It was also Stan Fagerstrom's favorite rod. He was an angler, author, hall of famer, and trick caster. They built the factory rods on GL3 material till they changed their rod designs. It was a popular rod blank to extend into the 6 1/2 ft. range with rod builders for many years.

Great build.

The blank's have been well received for over a decade and have been used to win tournaments.

Are you talking a cork grip? Not a chance, I"D have to find some x lrg square cork that probably doesn't exist due to the offset, than prototype till I got it right. I could set you up with a tube grip, but I"m booked till mid-April at least. Your builder can do the graphite grip. Making a EVA grip from block material would be a hairball still, but at least the lesser evil.

Retired Coastie, icebreaker north and south, loran north, icebreaker great lakes, three motor lifeboat stations WA/OR, instructor Motor Lifeboat School, yada, yada, yada. Loved every minute of it.

Lucky to find one, wouldn't mind having some more. Always my favorite for reel situations when I palm the reel. Tried getting just the reel seats from Super Sticker in their last days with no luck, they would sell only full kits. Not the lightest or most user friendly, my second choice was the Castaway full length exposed blank bottom reel seats, but they're now gone too, have another source of a similar seat I haven't tried yet in the works. If that's a cleanup of the original GLX seat, you did a fine job, rarely do I get it that cleaned up.

SeeNoSun, I miss spoke, the Superstickers never had the large bore model in production and the big bore wasn't in the Wiebe line for it's entire run so very, very few if any would be out there, there were years between when Wiebe shutdown and Supersticker bought the equipment. Just talked to a friend who set me straight. Also he reminded me that the last molds they used were from when they sold G Loomis reel seats so the have the G Loomis name on them.

My guess is that any casting reel seat you pick, 20 mm and smaller, will fit, your grip, and since they are center bored grips, they install like any other. The way the Black Widow type grips are installed is to size the reel seat to fit your blank in the correct position on the blank, something you always have to do with this seat, they don't come in sizes like the others. Cut a large foam arbor to match the angle of the Wiebe/Super Sticker reel seat and glue it to the back of the reel seat. Once the arbor is dry you just run a drill bit down through the reel seat, using it as a guide to get the right angle through the arbor. Install another arbor on the blank in the right place to ensure you have room for a butt cap of your choice, this arbor is centered just as it comes. Slip fit the reel seat to the blank. If everything is done properly the tube should now slide over the top of everything. The rest is pretty easy and obvious to a builder, about a 15 minute job, not counting the gluing, the reel seat sizing takes the time. Forgot to mention one thing, since the hole is offset on the Wiebe style there is a maximum you can bore to without removing your trigger. If I remember right, since it's been a long time, the max is at, or just shy of 9/16 of an inch. Also if your buying a seat, they may not mention that there were two bore sizes built by the manufacturer, a 3/8 bore with arbor slots built in that allow you to size, the seat to your liking, and a max bore seat that I believe is 9/16 bore, there may be a bunch of these out there that are hard to sell, since blanks have become so thin, but it would be a very poor choice to use on a thinner blank.