Keeping in constant contact and knowing what your bait is doing is the key to getting bites and being able to form/repeat a pattern, rod balance helps us realize this.
Having an off balance rod means a few things. One, your hands and wrist are fighting the weight of the rod and feel/concentration is no longer central while working a bait. For example, if your rod is leaning towards being tip heavy while using bottom contact baits, you’re fighting the weight of the rod and loosing that feel of the bait. You want to be able to concentrate on what the bait is doing on the bottom and what kind of structure you’re running across. Furthermore, if your rod is heavier in the butt section then this will hinder your reaction bait fishing, as your rod tip is facing down to get your bait in the right water column its specified for.
Secondly, balance helps us with castability. Having an off balance rod creates a false feeling of weight often accounting for inaccurate casts. We often overcompensate for the added weight and feeling we are getting from the off balanced rod and either make a longer or shorter cast and more often than not end up too far left/right of where you are trying to target.
Thirdly, rod to rod adjustments is far more easy to make. How many times have you fished with one bait and then moved on to the next rigged up rod only to find that it feels a lot different? This is most likely because it’s off balanced. If you have multiple setups and the weights fluctuate by a few ounces between rods and they are not balanced, that equates to a lot heavier or lighter feeling in your hands causing you to have to readjust the coordination in your hands, wrist, and arm each time you change setups. Having properly balanced setup alleviates this issue and makes that adjustment period a lot simpler and can also save some unwanted backlashes.
In order to help you be more successful on the water make sure to have well balanced equipment.
