I get that as anglers we are prone to bouts of obsessional behaviour, indeed I don’t think we would so love what so many of us do if we didn’t obsess about many things fishing related - but there is one thing I hear and see a lot about, it’s how a spinning reel attached to it “balances”. Surely how a rod and reel balances or doesn’t balance at some point on the rod is a purely subjective thing anyway? One angler likes the lightest setup going whereas the next angler likes a bit more heft in their hands - who is right and who is wrong?

I receive a fair few messages from anglers asking me whether so and so reel “balances” with so and so rod, but I never really know how to answer when it’s kind of meaningless to me. Let’s say that your lovely rod and shiny spinning reel balances on your forefinger as per the photo above - this makes sense to me when this is around where we obviously hold a fishing rod, but it doesn’t then matter to me where this balance point actually is because it’s all about how it feels to me when the gear is in my hands and I am actually fishing.

Don’t get me wrong though, because I like a lure rod and reel setup to feel “just right” in my hands as much as the next angler. I don’t worry about where the outfit balances on my forefinger though, and I am also not at all hasty to dismiss an outfit if it initially doesn’t feel quite right. How many times have I picked up a rod and reel outfit and thought nope, it’s not quite for me, but halfway through a fishing session and I’ve had enough time to get used to how the gear feels in my hands and now I’m thinking it’s the best outfit ever! I accept that I am in a different boat to a lot of you here in that I get to try a hell of a lot of different rods and reels for my bass fishing, but what that does is bang home to me even more that it isn’t all about the lightest setups all the time, and that more time with an outfit which might initially feel a bit heavy or indeed a bit too light can often give way to said outfit starting to feel really rather good.

The little Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG on the DAM Effzett Intenze Spin 9' 7-28g lure rod

Let’s take that very good and not very expensive DAM Effzett Intenze Spin 9' 7-28g lure rod (review here) which has a quoted weight of 148g and to me that makes it a lightweight fishing rod before we have even thought about putting a spinning reel on it. Nobody ever asked me to try this rod out, and nobody ever asked me to try different spinning reels on it to see how it felt either. I do this kind of stuff because I am interested. It’s the way I am made and at 47 years old I am not about to start apologising for it! So if we take a 9’ lure rod rated to fish with lures from 7-28g, then I am naturally thinking about a spinning reel around the size of a Shimano 2500/3000. You might not be I might add, but a Shimano 3000 size sort of reel tends to be my go-to for 9’ lure rods like this. What I put on this DAM Effzett Intenze Spin 9' 7-28g lure rod to try it out for the first time could have been one of a few different spinning reels around that Shimano 3000 size, and it happened to be my beloved little Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG. I can assure you that not for one second did I then try and balance this outfit on my forefinger, but when I started fishing with this setup it felt really good from the off. The Twin Power has always felt like a really light spinning reel to me, but it’s interesting how it compares at 250g loaded with line to this new and even lighter Shimano Vanford C3000HG which is even lighter at 191g loaded with line. I haven’t fished the lighter Vanford on this particular rod, but you get my drift.

I didn’t need to then take the Twin Power off and strap the somewhat heavier and larger Penn Slammer III 3500 spinning reel to this lightweight 9’ 7-28g lure rod, but I did so because I am always interested to try something different, and I wanted to see how it felt. We’re talking about taking a 250g spinning reel off the DAM rod and now putting the Slammer on which weighs a heftier 403g loaded up with line. Again I didn’t bother to see where this different outfit might “balance” on my forefinger, and whilst I didn’t concentrate much on science at school, even I can guess that an added 153g screwed into the reel seat of this lightweight lure rod would firstly put that balance point at a different part of the rod, and secondly that this now heavier outfit was going to feel rather different.

Which it did. You’re adding a larger spinning reel which weighs 153g more than the one I had been fishing with on the rod and had got used to. I could have easily dismissed this noticeably heavier outfit because it felt so different when I first picked it up, but what on earth would I learn by doing that? So I went out fishing with this heavier combination, and halfway through the first session with it and I’m now thinking how good the rod now feels with a bit more heft in my hands. I have no idea where the outfit would sit on my forefinger, and I have no idea whether the heavier reel “balances properly” with such a lightweight lure rod - but it’s feeling really rather good to me. Lovely lightweight spinning reels are lovely bits of kit, but a part of me also likes a bit more heft in my hands when I have got used to it.

The almost ridiculously lightweight and smooth and so on Shimano Vanford 4000XG

Another example - I’ve got a lure rod here which I can’t talk about and when it’s matched with the Shimano Vanford 4000XG (a ridiculously light 232g loaded with line) it feels about as good a more powerful lure fishing outfit as I have ever come across (some further thoughts to come in due course on this 4000 size Vanford compared to the 3000 size one I have had here for a bit now). Fishing with this rod and reel combination makes me smile literally every single time I wind the rod up and put a lure out there. It’s just so effortless and lightweight and so involving and it all feels so right in my hands, but I do know that I am not going to take a spinning reel as sublime as this Shimano Vanford 4000XG out into the surf with me. It might well be able to cope by the way, but why would I when I have my heavier Penn Slammer III 3500 which loves spending time around and under lots of crashing saltwater. So I strap this heavier spinning reel to this lure rod which I can’t talk about yet, and for sure the difference in weight is noticeable - but again it’s a matter of giving this different weight of outfit a bit of time and in due course the heavier version as such now feels just as good in my hands. It’s different, but different can sometimes be good can it not? I love a lightweight lure outfit as much as the next angler, but I am also prepared to give a different outfit a bit of time, and at the end of the day it’s all about how it feels to me when I am out fishing in all manner of different conditions…………..

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What does the rod and reel “in perfect balance” thing actually mean, and does it matter?

© Henry Gilbey 2023