The Case for Spinning Rods with Extended Foregrips
I’m old. At least old enough to have watched the 50-year evolution of walleye rods. Grew up 15 miles from the town where Gary Loomis first started building rods after he splintered off from Lamiglas. And watched the market-shock when Loomis expanded his venerable salmon, trout and steelhead brand and added bass rods back in the early ‘80’s. My mother worked for Loomis’s corporate attorney and though never telling anything “juicy,” Ma did relay the tales of Gary’s catches—he was well known to go fishing daily.
It was with more than casual interest that I observed the boom of the Loomis mystique. The introduction of the Loomis 722 is a tale ancient bassers know by heart. A short graphite 6-footer with a taught backbone and what we now call Fast or Extra Fast action. It was completely different than the soft parabolic bend of the typical fiberglass rods of the era. I still own and fish a few 722’s. It’s a power and bend that’s familiar. (Note: Loomis still offers the 722 in a couple grades of graphite).
A Couple 722's that I Still Use Regularly--One Casting and One Spinning. I Bought These In About 1998, So I've Gotten My Money's Worth! These Predate the Heavy Jig and Heavy Glidebait Techniques and Are Equipped With Traditional Foregrips
Needless to say, that short, stout style quickly revolutionized fishing rods and particularly freshwater tournament fishing rods. It didn’t take long for every rod manufacturer to get in this game. Walleye tournaments were just getting big numbers by the mid to late ‘80’s and as quickly as companies jumped in to build bass rods, they followed up with species-specific walleye rods shortly thereafter.
The rod creation process has been through many upgrades--better graphite, better guides, lighter components. These are noticeable positive changes. Another thing has happened over the decades and it’s almost imperceptible to many anglers. Rods have grown…for darn near every technique. Other than a few specialized regional “short stick” techniques, almost all of us run slightly longer rods now than in the past. This changes things pretty noticeably in the hand. Even with the space-age lightness of modern rods, that extra length puts the pull of our line farther out the fulcrum of the rod.
Along with this tip-heavy feel with the longer rods, and the “reach” to the line pulling on the tip, reels have lightened up considerably. The weight of the reel connected to the butt section counterbalances the tip and even offsets the weight of your lure. The lighter the reel—like the current featherweight offerings—the more you notice the tip weight of those extra inches of rod.
Compounding the physics of rod design is the change in walleye fishing strategy. While we all learned “lighter is better” and “slow drop” for tricking wily walleyes. As an angling community, we’ve now switched to commonly using jigs more than double the weight we all learned with. In general, the 3-inch plastics on 1/8 ounce jigs have ballooned into 4 and even 5 inch plastics on big heavy jigs. Tournament pro’s are crushing huge walleyes with half-ounce and bigger jigs TO SPEED THE DROP and trigger walleye reaction strikes. Even Especially in shallow water.
More and More, We Find Ourselves Fishing Heavier Than Ever for Walleyes. Big Jigs with Fast Drop Are Common Nowadays
Additionally, the glide-bait technique has become a primary walleye method with a dozen companies building their version of the original Jigging Rap. These baits typically weigh as much as an ounce or more—and walleyes love ‘em! Who would have ever thought faster sink rate would be great for walleye fishing? The tournament record is undeniable. To be a serious walleye angler means you embrace these heavy metal baits. Acme and Moonshine Lures pro Jake Monroe earned both Angler of the Year and Team of the Year accolades on the Montana Walleye Circuit in 2023. He and partner, Jeff Ingram, carry 4 large cases of 164 glide-baits as their tourney “kit.” That’s 656 glide-baits! “It’s the go to method for summer walleye so we make sure we have our boat loaded,” stresses Monroe.
Combine these factors: longer rods, lighter reels and heavier gear, and the advantages of killer modern rods can be usurped by the wrist-torque of the new age of walleye fishing. Enter the new technique-specific rods with extended foregrips. And don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen extended foregrips before. Most commonly on casting rods. These new long grips are a spinning rod deal.
Gotta give props to St. Croix for being the first rod builder to really push the extended foregrip as a means to enhance these newer fishing techniques. More on this in a bit. What exactly is an extended foregrip? It’s the grip in front of the reel seat. A grip that is normally quite small, more as a place-holder than as a grip. Well, to counter the tip-heavy feel of modern aggressive walleye techniques, the extended foregrip is made large enough to encourage us to grip AHEAD of the reel seat. This changes everything!
St. Croix Builds Several Rods with Extended Foregrips. These are the Jig-N-Rap and Rig-N-Rap Rods for the Modern Heavy-Lure Walleye Game. Note the Rod on the Left is a Higher End Legend Tournament Walleye Version While the Other is a Moderately Priced Eyecon Model
Some high-end custom rods list the balance point in the specs. You know, the point where the rod balances on a single finger. It’s possible in the custom rod world to choose rods that balance where you want them to—a specific number of inches ahead of the reel seat. For the rest of us running production rods, the extended grip is our new balance point for heavy spinning rod duty.
You may wonder why anyone would use spinning gear with heavy terminal tackle? I personally greatly prefer casting rods when casting over about 3/8 ounce and for almost all hardbait casting. However, the short-game of precision casting inside of 80 feet—sniping with forward facing sonar—is custom-made for spinning gear. Yes, I use more finesse casting rod set-ups than most sane walleye snipers. But the balance and rod-work capability with the long foregrips has tempted me back into the world of spinning rods.
To go along with his early adoption of the glide-bait technique, Montana’s Monroe also used his role on the St. Croix Pro Staff to get his hands on the first run of technique-specific rods for glide-baiting and other heavy presentations. Monroe had been gripping his spinning rods ahead of the reel seat for several years, so the transition to big foregrips was natural for him. The St. Croix Jig-N-Rap and Rip-N-Rap rods both have extended foregrips combined with a bit more overall length than you might expect, 7’1”. These two rods have foregrips large enough to hold your entire hand, so you no longer need to split your fingers with the reel foot. Basically, you can choose the balance point of the rod by adjusting the placement of your grip.
This is truly world-changing! Instead of trying to muscle your way with heavy baits and tip-heavy rods, the leverage and balance of the forward grip is comfortable, smooth and natural. And with modern sonar sniping, we all tend to work our baits more than in the past. The better balance of long foregrips frees us to play with our presentation more. Frees us to use rod manipulations to entice fish that we see following our baits.
If this grip-point is so great, why is St. Croix the only company building rods like this? Actually, I started researching and I’ll-be-darned, almost every company I looked at offered at least a rod or two with an extended foregrip. So, St. Croix is the smart company that understands how significant these extended foregrips are and markets to that type of fishing. Interestingly, though most every brand offers extended foregrips, I didn’t find one single company mentioning the foregrip anywhere in their publicity or marketing materials…and nothing online either. Point here is that whatever rod company you personally prefer, there’s a good chance that they offer a spinning rod with an extended foregrip. But they almost certainly don’t say anything about it.
I’m personally a bit of a Daiwa fan-boy so I decided to add a Daiwa with extended foregrip to my rod stable. For the past few years, I’ve been gushing over the sensitivity of Daiwa’s graphite guides—the Air Guide System AGS--and found the perfect rod for my initiation into extended foregrips. I got the 2022 6’10” Tatula Elite Shooting Rod with AGS graphite guides. What a great rod! However, the foregrip seemed a bit thin. I like a fairly substantial grip. But then I watched the bail spinning past my knuckles when reeling. A thick foregrip would put your knuckles in the zone to get smacked by the whirling reel. So it’s a balancing act between grip thickness and the need for clearance for your knuckles when reeling.
Daiwa Offers Nearly Two Dozen Spinning Rods with Extended Foregrips. The Silver Rod is a 6'10" Tatula Elite AGS (Graphite Guides) "Shooting" Stick Built for Sniping. The Cork-Handled Rod is a Moderately Priced TD Eye 701MXS Seven Footer Designed For Walleye Anglers
The past year with this rod has convinced me that I need extended foregrips on more spinning rods, if not all my spinning rods. In essence, the extended foregrip is like choking up on a baseball bat. My ability to work my presentation is enhanced, my leverage for hooksets is much improved, my endurance to run the same rod for hours is better. I just plain like how the forward grip position works! My second “big grip” rod is another Daiwa. This time I chose the new moderately priced TD Eye seven footer in medium power. I believe it’s called the TDEYE701MXS. Wow, for a measly $129 bucks this baby is sweet!
Clearly, you don’t have to break the bank to get great extended foregrip rods. If you check the website, St. Croix now has lots of extended foregrip rods. The ones I’m referring to are the ones designed for glide-baits and lipless cranks. St. Croix has three levels of buy-in: The not-so-inexpensive Tournament Elite models for $285; The Avid X series selling in the low $200 range and the really approachable Eyecon models retailing for a moderate $145. Monroe adds, “I really like the Eyecon. It doesn’t fish like it’s cheaper than the Legend Tournament. And don’t get me wrong, I really like all these rods, but the Eyecon is the one that surprises me with its feel.”
The Daiwa’s in my boat are in that similar price range. As noted, the TD Eye model is a reasonable $129 bucks. The Tatula Elite “Shooter” with AGS guides is a bit pricier at $300. Daiwa has dozens more with extended foregrips (but no clear way to figure out which handle is on which rod). And if you really want to go wild, the Daiwa Steez models have both extended foregrips and AGS graphite guides for a mere $550. Don’t even tease yourself with the new Daiwa Steez Reel Control for, please take a seat…$1300! By gawd the walleyes better bite that one when it’s still in the rod locker to justify that cost (yes, I want one). And just in case the idea of graphite guides for the unreal extra sensitivity appeals to you, Daiwa licenses those AGS guides to St. Croix for their highest end rods—the Legend Extreme series for just under $700. Sorry, no extended foregrips in the Extreme series.
When ordering rods online, be aware that few of the companies make it clear which rods have extended foregrips and which ones don’t. And many brands just show one picture of a spinning rod and don’t delineate between various handle types. You need to be a bit of a researcher to assure yourself that the rods you are buying have the grip you want. Better yet, get your local independent tackle store involved. Then you can “feel it” first.
Sniping With Heavy Jigs and Oversized Plastics Is A Perfect Situation for Extended Foregrips on Your Spinning Rods. And If You Are Doing Lots of Swimming, Darting and Manipulating to Trigger the Fish, the Foregrip Hand Position Gives You Tremendous Control
One thing is for certain, modern walleye methods including longer rods, lighter reels and heavier terminal tackle all tend to make rods imbalanced and tip-heavy. While you can counter that imbalance with weight—heavier reels or weighted handles—I’m not convinced that more weight is the best solution. Many of the top rod companies have gravitated towards the variable balance point we get with extended foregrips. And now that Fuji is making a production model extended foregrip handle (both Daiwa and St. Croix use some of the Fuji handles in their mix) you’ll be seeing even more extended foregrips for all kinds of spinning rods, not just sniping rods for us walleye types. I’m an advocate pushing you to try one—I’m convinced you’ll like it!
Addendum: The first two people to review this article pre-press both insisted that I divulge my past walleye rod endeavors. Back in 1987 I had a small tackle manufacturing company and part of that effort was to offer a custom walleye rod—the Wallhanger Pro. It was an unsanded Loomis 722 blank custom-built to my specs by Reeder Rods. We had both spinning and casting versions. I sold enough of them to draw the attention of the Lamiglas rod company. I had some great visits to the Lamiglas plant with the owner of Lamiglas and his twin brother who owned a tackle distribution company. Together we created a 4 rod series called the Ron Boggs All-Around Walleye Rod. It was a ‘90’s thing and we sold a few rods. As I recall, the best year we sold 256 copies of the All-Around Walleye Rod that retailed for $129, so it was not a high financial gain for any of us, but it was one step deeper into the engineering of a great walleye rod. That’s something I’ve been involved with now for several decades. I have to admit that the extended foregrip revolution is one of the most significant and useful evolutions of walleye rods in the past 50 years!