I lengthened the butts of my jigging rods

When jigging, I like to hold the butt of my rod in my armpit. To facilitate this technique, I have lengthened the butts of two of my favorite jigging rods so they are 17"-18" long behind the reel, as shown in the picture at the end of this post. The longer butts allow me to hold the rod comfortably and with good leverage with my rod hand, and to operate the spool release of the baitcaster reels I use for jigging with the thumb of my rod hand, while cranking the reel with my other hand.

I use large capacity baitcaster reels with a fast retrieve rate such as 7:1 and a power handle for jigging because they allow my lures to drop quickly, and because a baitcaster reel makes it easy to keep my lure in contact with the bottom by hitting the spool release to drop the lure and cranking in line to raise the lure, as necessary.  When a rod has a short butt, I have to either (a) hold the rod behind the reel with my rod hand way back near my armpit, which is uncomfortable and doesn't provide much leverage, but allows me to operate the spool release with the thumb of my rod hand, or (b) hold the rod above the reel with my rod hand, which provides better leverage on the rod, but requires me to reach back and operate the spool release with my reel hand.

The longer butts of my modified rods let me hold the rods under my armpit with my rod hand behind the reel and well out in front of my chest, which is comfortable, provides good leverage, and lets me operate the spool release with the thumb of my rod hand.

The two rods I lengthened are Ugly Stik Tiger Elite medium heavy casting/jigging rods, one for 4-7 oz. lures, and the other for 3/4-4 oz. lures.  Both rods are under 6'6" and came with pretty long butts.  I sawed the gimbel mounts off the ends of their butts, slid a 1/2" wood dowel into the end of the rod, and glued the dowel in place.  Then I slid a piece of radiator hose over the dowel and glued it in place. Finally, I slid a piece of PVC pipe over the radiator hose and glued it in place, and glued a PVC pipe end cap at the end of the PVC pipe.  The wood dowel, radiator hose, and PVC pipe all fit together quite snugly.

The top rod in the picture below is an Ugly Stik Tiger 7' medium heavy rod which I use when fishing for sturgeon and other large fish.  It came with a long butt.  The comfort of using that rod is what encouraged me to lengthen the butts of the other two rods in the picture.

I prefer big butts.  In all seriousness though, I don't like jigging with a short butted rod. Nice mod!