I recently bought a new rod and reel outfit and the way it felt in my hand made me question the "balance" of the set up. The rod being a Sage Z-Axis 9'-0" 5wt. 4 pc. and the reel is a Ross Evolution LT 2 (4-6 wt.). When I set up the outfit the first time to go fishing something felt different and awkward compared to my other rods. The rod seemed "top heavy" or light on the butt or reel end. Even with a loaded reel the actual pivot point or center of gravity was just over an inch in front of the handle or in front of the hook holder. After some research I found that the ideal pivot point should be about where your thumb and index finger rest on the grip. This may sound critical to some but an out of balance rod can make casting a chore especially for dry fly fishing. It can throw your timing off and make you use bad casting techniques. It's sort of like putting new tires on your car without balancing them and expecting it to drive smoothly. I also have an 8'-6" 4 wt. Z-Axis with a Ross Rhythm reel and it is balanced right where it should be and feels right with no alterations.
Now I was wondering what is making my new rod off balanced. Immediately I thought of the Evolution as being one of the lightest reels on the market today. But shouldn't a light 5 wt. reel be matched perfectly with a light 5 wt. rod like the Z-Axis? Not necessarily. I imagine an 8 ft. 5 wt. rod would have a different center of gravity than a 9 ft. 5 wt. rod. They can't manufacture every reel fine tuned for every rod they make. It is up to you to do the fine tuning or find a reel that balances with the rod.
I brought my new outfit back to the shop where I purchased it and told the "pro" of the situation who looked at me like I had three heads. He wasn't familiar with balancing and didn't know of any solutions so we then called Sage and spoke with a representative. The Sage representative told us this is not an uncommon problem and actually a friend of his had a similar situation with his salt water setup. Here was his solution to the problem:
The reel needed more weight to balance with the rod (so much for bragging that you have one of the lightest reels on the market). The easiest way to do this is to get some lead core trolling line (28 lb. test) and attach some to the spool of the reel underneath the backing. The trick is finding out how much of it you will need to balance your rod. There are formulas for figuring it out, i.e. a loaded reel should weigh about 1.5 times the swing weight of the rod. But the best way to do it is to wrap the lead core around the outside of your reel until you have the proper amount to make your rod balance out. When you find the amount you need just cut it and attach it to the spool before the backing. You may need anywhere from 12" to 30 feet depending on how out of balance your rod is. The only problem is you will be using less backing line. If this doesn't work or you think you're using too much lead core than you might have to go with the next size bigger reel or a heavier reel.
To make a long story short it took about 15 feet of lead core to balance my rod better.