Spining a rod

[Dan]

Had a guy come in to work today and wanted a rod. He wanted a cheap rod and his only concern was that the spine of the rod lined up with the reel seat. He said an old timer, who had built custom rods for years, had told him that if the spine lined up correctly with the reel seat that's all you need. Get away cheap. He put the butt of the rod on the floor and flexed it with his palm and rolled the rod over till he felt it give jumps over.
Rods have spines, I knew that, but I haven't ever given it much more thought than that they were all correctly spined. In talking to an experienced rod builder he said that even the top names in the rod business don't take time to spine their rods. He asked me if I ever had a rod that while fighting a fish it wanted to roll a little one way or the other. If it does it isn't or hasn't been spines correctly.
Custom rod builders make sure they and take time to spine them correctly. Spinning rods have the eyes on the bottom of the spine and casting rods eyes  are on the top. However, a rod that is mass produced may have the spine running along the side or a two piece rod may have the spine running in two different directions.  I guess I will be testing more rods until I get the hang of determining if the spine is running true.

[Manxfishing]

i've heard of it, And yes it makes sense
But see how I buy most of the rods online it would be hard to check out before I bought a rod

But I'll have to check the ones in the garage

[TimH]

Thanks for the post Dan! Your timing with this is perfect because just this weekend I was commenting how I have a Abu Vendetta that seems to curve left a little when fighting a fish.  This is also my only rod that has a "creak" in the reel set.  I'm thinking this might be the problem...time to go out and check all my rods.

[Got Fish??]

Finding your spine is a little harder, once the guides are already on the blank

[djkimmel]

That curve means the spine is probably off to the side, and if you use a rod a lot, like I used to, you can end up having issues with guides cracking around the foot under the thread and epoxy, and reel seats that come loose. Partly depends on the action of the rod, and how big your Bassmaster hookset and fish fighting muscles are...

The extra torque also wears on you. If you're someone who makes 50-80 casts a day and fishes 25 times a year for fun you may never really notice, think about it or care. If you're someone who fishes 100+, many days in a row, tossing out hundreds of casts in a day, you'll feel it for sure.

It's similar to using a spinning reel all day to crankbait fish or throw things like spinnerbaits that pull back. It doesn't seem like a lot but that extra torque adds up.

It's been decades since I made my own rods. I had an expert, full-time rod builder who made works of art at premium prices show me all about rod blanks and rod building. The spine test was another one of those valuable lessons you're glad someone teaches you.

I think rod blanks in general are so much lighter and thinner than they were back then it might not be as pronounced as it once was? I'm sure some of the hardcore rod builders we have on here can add to this. I don't really test for it specifically on mass production rods anymore but I like to hand test a rod too before I buy it when I can. If it is a serious problem you can feel it pretty easy.

I still have some older rods that have been used hard and put away worn where you can see the guides have been twisted slightly around the blank over time. Those tend to be the rods I don't pick up as much.