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| On Labor Day I had an accident in my shop with the table saw, board kicked back and smashed my left hand up pretty good. My middle finger got it the worst, broken bone, severed tendon, cut up. The hand has healed quite well but still somewhat stiff and my finger will never be straight and lacks some strength despite regular exercise, therapy.
I am thinking it might be time to switch from palming the reel to using the fore grip.
Have any of you made the switch or have always used that grip and if so how does it work for glider, wtd, and other lures requiring rod twitches, jerks, etc.?
I know it will take practice but I think that may be the way to go. I did see a video of Greg Thomas demonstrating glider technique and he was using the fore grip and made it seem pretty simple but suspect he has been doing it awhile ;>).
Any help is appreciated. |
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Posts: 482
| sorry about the accident,you should be able to get use to the foregrip ,its not that different , but gives you more leverage i think.
i switch from palming to foregrip when my hand gets tired or for straight retreives sometimes and even cast while still holding foregrip. good luck. |
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| Thanks. Setting the hook is one of my main concerns. The middle finger is the longest and the therapist says you rely on it for gripping (he's a fisherman). |
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Posts: 319
Location: In the slop! | Switched years ago, never looked back. It didn't take long to feel completely natural. Makes for a stronger hook-set and a more balanced rod. |
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Posts: 129
| Try the Outdoor Grips Jig Ripper.
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 350.jpg (15KB - 358 downloads)
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Posts: 859
Location: MN | I know this seems crazy but have you thought about switching hands? If it's a long term issue? |
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| NathanH - 2/18/2017 10:18 AM
I know this seems crazy but have you thought about switching hands? If it's a long term issue?
I do use both left and right hand reels and have thought about reeling more with my left hand but all but one of my reels is right handed, so for those I will probably use the fore grip. Not crazy at all by the way, very good suggestion. Going forward new reels will probably be left handed. |
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Posts: 410
Location: With my son on the water | Mike D
Thanks for posting the picture of the Jig Ripper, has anyone actually used one? If yes can you tell us how it works?
Thanks Brad |
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Posts: 897
| Last year I started using the Jig Ripper for everything other than gliders and WTD. For those I use the fore grip. Before that I exclusively used the foregrip. The guides at AML got me converted to foregrip in 2007. Once you get used to it I think you'll find you have far more control over the rod using the foregrip. |
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| whynot - 2/18/2017 11:04 AM
Last year I started using the Jig Ripper for everything other than gliders and WTD. For those I use the fore grip. Before that I exclusively used the foregrip. The guides at AML got me converted to foregrip in 2007. Once you get used to it I think you'll find you have far more control over the rod using the foregrip.
Thanks. Good to know others have converted successfully. |
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Posts: 1100
| I do both, imo the biggest pain with the fore-grip hold is that I feel the reel gets to close to my body, when using long power-handles, for hard pulling bait. |
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Posts: 8719
| I started out palming the reel and had the usual pain and numbness after a few days of fishing. So I bought a left handed reel and started switch hitting. Then I noticed that a friend of mine always held the foregrip. It took some getting used to, maybe a day or two, but I won't go back. You don't have to have a death grip on the rod, and to me at least you can really hammer them setting the hook. Gliders are no problem but after that I really had to experiment with rods to re-learn how to work a Weagle. I'd say that was the most difficult part of the transition was being able to work WTD baits consistently. |
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