Haven't been out on the lake to fish yet this year. The weather hasn't been very cooperative. I've been biding my time tinkering with the boat a little and arranging jigs in plano containers, surfing the web looking at fishing reels and playing with rods and reels. I decided to switch reels around on some of my rods for better balance. All the rods were a little bit tip heavy. Last year I used steel washers and rubber chair leg covers on two of rods. I wanted to use lead this time, I tried hammering some lead bullets but the shape wasn't working out. I don't cast my own jigs or bullets so I needed to figure out how to melt the lead bullets and form them to the right size. For the size I drilled a 7/8 hole in a piece of plywood for my mold. Now to melt the lead, I had a couple of ideas from a heat gun to the coal furnace, I ended up on my garage floor with a large kitchen spoon in a pair of vice grips and a Mapp gas torch. The first thing that went through my mind when I kneeled down with a big spoon and a torch was I must be a fishing addict. Ended up melting two 40 cal bullets for each weight, they ended up weighing about .7 oz each.

I also went to the store today to get an actual look at some of the reels I was debating on. Up until 2 years ago I only used spincast reels since then I've made the switch to spinning reels. I've guess I've decided on Diawa reels since that seems to be what I have on my rods. I have 2 pfluger trions, and a shimano but everytime I put them on a rod I end up taking them back off eventually. I was debating between the Diawa Revros (I already have two on rods), and the Diawa Regal. I ended up going with the Regal, mainly because it was a little lighter than the Revros. Spooled it with 4lb Vicious and mounted it on a 6'6" ESP rod, and balanced the setup to be slightly butt heavy for casting jigs. I balanced all the rods with a slightly butt heavy bias thinking for casting jigs I want the tip up anyways.

Any opinions on the slight butt heavy for casting vs perfectly level balance or slightly tip heavy?