help me to understand when a tiny #9 roller tip is needed?

[Squidder Bidder]

There is a subset of fisherman out there that like to use rollers for trolling because they like to use rollers for trolling. Some very fancy rollers. I think it is based on tradition from the time when the best saltwater trolling rods had rollers.

Rollers have more utility if you are not casting, not using modern braid (e.g., wire or mono), and/or need to pass knots through the guides.

A roller on the tip is more useful than other spots on the rod because the line angle at the guide can be more acute, and a short section of line can pass back and forth repeatedly through the tip as the rod bends and unbends from certain trolling methods such as high speed surface skirts.  The roller rolls, so there is no friction from rubbing.

But with modern braid and ceramic rings, the coefficient friction is so low that the advantages of rollers rarely outweigh the disadvantages IMHO.


And a big roller for a very small diameter blank tip is a very odd duck.

-J

I have four heavy (130# to unlimited) rods matched to Penn 80s as stand-up trolling gear for giant Bluefin. The rods have all roller guides.

With heavier lines (200#+) the line-to-line connections (i.e., mono topshot to flouro leader) are crimped with a micro swivel in between - so it's crimp, swivel, crimp and the whole shebang is pretty cumbersome. I can't imagine it running through a ring guide. The rollers handle it without a hiccup. It's at a location that tends to pass in and out of the rod during a fight too.

I tend to think that rollers are more convenient for winding on a lot of terminal tackle and heavy leader material. Captains here (East Coast) are recommending this set up for standard Canyon trolling with short (6') leaders so that the fish (usually yellowfin tuna) are within an easy gaff shot.

[jurelometer]

There is a subset of fisherman out there that like to use rollers for trolling because they like to use rollers for trolling. Some very fancy rollers. I think it is based on tradition from the time when the best saltwater trolling rods had rollers.

Rollers have more utility if you are not casting, not using modern braid (e.g., wire or mono), and/or need to pass knots through the guides.

A roller on the tip is more useful than other spots on the rod because the line angle at the guide can be more acute, and a short section of line can pass back and forth repeatedly through the tip as the rod bends and unbends from certain trolling methods such as high speed surface skirts.  The roller rolls, so there is no friction from rubbing.

But with modern braid and ceramic rings, the coefficient friction is so low that the advantages of rollers rarely outweigh the disadvantages IMHO.


And a big roller for a very small diameter blank tip is a very odd duck.

-J

I have four heavy (130# to unlimited) rods matched to Penn 80s as stand-up trolling gear for giant Bluefin. The rods have all roller guides.

With heavier lines (200#+) the line-to-line connections (i.e., mono topshot to flouro leader) are crimped with a micro swivel in between - so it's crimp, swivel, crimp and the whole shebang is pretty cumbersome. I can't imagine it running through a ring guide. The rollers handle it without a hiccup. It's at a location that tends to pass in and out of the rod during a fight too.

I tend to think that rollers are more convenient for winding on a lot of terminal tackle and heavy leader material. Captains here (East Coast) are recommending this set up for standard Canyon trolling with short (6') leaders so that the fish (usually yellowfin tuna) are within an easy gaff shot.

Interesting.

Don't they even make jumbo opening roller guides designed specifically to pass extra chunky hardware? I seemed to remember something about that.

But I would argue that with modern braid and wind on leaders (a topshot is essentially a long leader), the use cases for needing to have hardware that has to be wound on decreases substantially.  There should usually be  ways to design an equally productive setup that does not require winding on any hardware.

If you are using a full mono line system, I can see how this would be more cumbersome.

-J

[Squidder Bidder]

Interesting.

Don't they even make jumbo opening roller guides designed specifically to pass extra chunky hardware? I seemed to remember something about that.

But I would argue that with modern braid and wind on leaders (a topshot is essentially a long leader), the use cases for needing to have hardware that has to be wound on decreases substantially.  There should usually be  ways to design an equally productive setup that does not require winding on any hardware.

If you are using a full mono line system, I can see how this would be more cumbersome.

-J

Yes, the main manufacturers make guides with extra hood clearance for this purpose.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that a heavy hollowcore braid to heavy top shot splice is pretty cumbersome itself - it's stiff for a substantial length where the braid envelops the mono and there is a pronounced shoulder (especially under load when the hollow core is stretched) where the hollow core starts to have the mono inside of it. Some guys go 5+ feet into the hollow core. I don't think it would play well with ring guides under load. The splice seems to just lay over the rollers and slide as the rollers roll.

Here these inshore Bluefin are line shy, so the SOP is to troll a lengthy fluorocarbon leader (30' - 50'). You can't rely upon the fluoro as a shock absorber, so you need a connection from heavy mono (shock absorber) to heavy fluoro (for stealth and abrasion resistance). That's where we have two crimps connected by an Owner micro hyper barrel swivel. This is the apparatus that goes in and out of the guides several times during a fight.

I think for me at this point I'm so invested (financially!) in roller guides that it's take a lot to convince me that there are ring guides that would take their place. Also, I find roller guides to be very rugged versus ring guides, so I worry less about something weird (but common on a boat) happening and a guide insert getting banged and falling out or similar. If something was to happen to compromise a roller, it's an easy fix that I can perform with a couple of screwdrivers in a few minutes.

[UKChris1]

I've seen and heard of a number of splices coming undone from wind-on leaders and topshots when the splice hits a ring guide (or a crewman's glove, but that's another story), particularly the tip guide as any bending of the line is most extreme at that point. The 'Chinese finger trap' comes free in the blink of an eye.

This is less likely with roller guide (though not impossible). Of course, if the splice had been made properly...

[jurelometer]

I don't want to present myself as an authority on this, as I am not a chaser of jumbo tuna, but I would simply point out that here on the USA west coast, rods with ring guides using tied on and/or wind on topshots and  leaders up to 200lb is the dominant system for small to very large (up to 300b - we don't get the super jumbos here) bluefin and yellowing tuna. This is for lure tossing, day/night jigging, drifting live bait and trolling.

It is pretty rare to see a newer rod with rollers out here now.  So the majority have decided to move on from rollers, and it pretty much followed the widespread adoption of of braid.

It seems to me that rollers on larger rods are not significantly worse, just less necessary.  I am not going to argue  with Squidder Bidder's points on the benefits of rollers, because I think they are accurate. I do think that the functional niche for rollers is shrinking, and  pro-roller preference seems to be driven more by regional bias and custom, and less by actual differences in fishing requirements.

As to needing extremely long fluoro leaders for bluefin "because they are line shy":

Like all tuna, bluefin have vision that has evolved to favor sensitivity over acuity. They are ram feeders that are constantly on the move, and benefit from seeing more stuff less clearly over seeing less stuff more clearly.  The fish that sees the bait first gets to eat first.  One of the problems with farming bluefin is that they will swim right into the walls of a tank  - especially the younger ones.  Scientists have measured bluefin visual acuity and it isn't that great (we have a thread on this somewhere).

So while bluefin can be on the shy side at times, I don't understand why we all think it is caused by a minor difference in refraction in the leader, and not the big boat splashing around and emitting all sorts of loud odd noises ( bluefin hearing is not highly sensitive either ).  IMHO,  if you have to stick a swivel in your system, it is not going to scare a tuna by being five or so feet from your lure, and it will work better at that location. 

These is a logic based argument, and not based on firsthand experience with big tuna.  I wouldn't tell those East Coast guys that fish every day that they are doing it all wrong.  Just suggesting an open mind.

-J

[boon]

300lb is a minnow in the Giant Bluefin fishery. A good fish is probably double that, and a real good one is a grander. The west coast head boat fishery isn't really a useful reference point.

I can't see any ringed guide surviving a crimped connection going through it at pace and under load.

[jurelometer]

300lb is a minnow in the Giant Bluefin fishery. A good fish is probably double that, and a real good one is a grander. The west coast head boat fishery isn't really a useful reference point.

I can't see any ringed guide surviving a crimped connection going through it at pace and under load.

I think it is is a good reference point, if we are talking about the value of rollers for the majority of saltwater fishing. I still have a 20 lb class rod somewhere that is outfitted with rollers. It is a factory trolling rod from not that very far back in the day. You won't find those made very often nowadays.

From my understanding, most of the East Coast USA tuna sportfishery is for  the small to large yellowfin and bluefin. Targeting the giants is a small subset of the fishery. The west coast guys are maxing out at around 20-30 lbs of drag at strike and 200lbs of mono going through the guides on the topshot.  If you are going beyond that, or have a need to pass hardware through the guides, then rollers make sense, and rollers are not going to be very cumbersome with that size of gear.  (As a side note, I can't imagine that winding crimps onto a spool under high load is good for the line underneath it. If you gotta do it, you gotta do it, I guess)

Which is sort of my point.  For awhile- maybe staring around the 70s, the push was to make rollers for lighter and lighter rods (remember those weird single foot triangular rollers?), but since the advent of braid, the types of fishing where rollers are considered superior has gradually shrunk to the largest big game fishing, wire line fishing, spools of large diameter mono - some pretty small niches.  I am not being an absolutist and claiming that they are entirely obsolete.  Just mostly.

As for the minnow comment, as someone who thinks that tuna over 60-80 lbs are getting into the no-fun zone, you are hurting my feelings

-J

[boon]

Absolutely, for the majority of fishing they are completely superceded by a quality SiC guide. I have a very small handful of fairly specialist rods that still have any roller guides. But they still have their place in a small handful of fisheries.

Keep in mind that the IGFA only changed the topshot rule to functionally allow braid mainlines in 2017. Prior to that, straight mono was king, and remains so in extremely light line class sportfishing.

EDIT: I should add, a bimini twist/offshore plait in hard 37kg mono feels pretty disgusting through a tip guide but goes through a roller tip without a second thought, and is still probably the #1 way of attaching a wind-on leader in a gamefishing setup.