How And Where Tennessee Handle Placement

[Kititas]

Where do you put the reel to balance the rod? How do you find this placement? What do you connect the reel with? Just got a rod with this handle for the first time please help.

[Arv]

Are you building a rod? You may get more responses if you repost this in the tacklemaking forum. I don't know the first thing about this so I unfortunately cannot help.

[Kititas]

This is a complete rod I purchased

[Kititas]

I purchased a rod with a Tennessee handle and was wondering where you put the reel and how to balance the rod? Also how do you attach the reel to the rod? Never done this or owned a rod with this type of handle please help.

[Fishes in trees]

Just holding the reel on the handle, grip it in different places on the handle until it feels "best".  Then I use black electricians tape (or colored), stretched pretty tightly to attach the reel to the handle.  Once it is attached, if you don't like it, cut off all the tape and try again.  Make sure you line up the reel with the guides.  You will feel pretty stupid if you get the reel taped on and it isn't lined up with the guides.

 

If you don't like the way that the electricians tape feels, cover the vinyl tape with bicycle handlebar wrap, or a rod wrap or tennis racket wrap.  This is how you adjust the thickness of the handle to fit your hand.

 

If you want the reel off the handle a little bit, you can use any number of materials to shim it.  Whatever you use will be covered by tape.

[iabass8]

As said above, just hold the rod and reel where you hold it when fishing and move the reel up and down on the handle until it feels the most weightless or effortless to hold. Lots of people use electrical tape but there are tennessee grips made that slide on to the rod handle and will lock your reel in place. They are just rubber with a small notch to hold the reel in place. Some people like these and some think they slide around too much. My UL trout rod came with them and I really enjoy the grips. Tennessee handles are fantastic.

[.RM.]

You place the reel on the grip where the rod/reel will feel comfortable in your hands..
If the rod doesn't have a pair of metal slip rings, that slide up over the ends of the reel foot. You will tape the reel to the grip in the location you feel comfortable with...

Or you can use plastic cable ties. The rings are better but all will work....

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

I would expect a new rod to come with the slip rings. They may not fit over the butt cap if there is one. Some folks just prefer the tape deal but IMO it somewhat offsets the versatility advantage of the handle design.