looking for shockproof guides, are Pacbay TW any good?

[steelfish]

hey Guys,

as you know I normally fish on Panga boats and the treatment that a fishing gear recieve on a panga is 3x harder than when fishing on a expensive sportfishing boat, the reels and rods are alway banging on the sides or floor of the panga unless you are really careful anyway.

Im looking for foolproof and shockproof guides for the loaner rods used on charter boats (pangas), normally the captains like to use the good old chrome wire guides because of that reason, I was looking for them to get a bunch and repair some missing guides on the rods and I saw this ones that I have never knew before  TW pacbay twister wire
http://www.mudhole.com/XTWG-Non-Fouling-Twister-Guides-Hard-Chrome?quantity=1&custcol1=71

have any of you any comment of those?

there are no much comments for them on the web forums, so not good or bad comments
but I found out they are monster size when comparing same # number of that model vs the XGB model



this is suposedly a #7 TW   vs  #10 XGB hard chrome model
but since they flex I dont that size as a big problem on 50# up to 80# rods








do you have any other rod guides models that could handle the treatment of rockies on a panga?

[Swami805]

That's a very old guide design that fell out of favor for newer styles a long time ago. I've never used them but those ones in the picture look pretty beefy. The old ones were thin wire almost springey. Looks like they might be worth a shot. Tough to beat those chrome guides for durability though especially the bridged ones. Pacbay makes those with stronger welds than perfection did, might be the strongest guides around. A single piece of twisted metal doesn't have much to brake unless the get smashed. Thanks for posting those, might have to give them a try. Sheridan

[thorhammer]

Hey Alex a lot of the party boats here in in NC use the snake guides because they will be abused daily by tourions. They have caught millions of fish bottom bouncing where fish aren't running. I wouldn't put them on a wahoo rod but for down and dirty work where the gear will get treated like a construction rake have at it

[steelfish]

thanks John, those are the comments I wanted to hear, they are pretty cheap too.


I have a rod that a friend (who runs a charter) gave me to fix 3 guides, the other 3 guides are all banged out badly too but they are not broken, he said they are still good 
I want to fix all 6 guides for free to him as a gift for his friendship and good service when taking my family fishing with him, but I those Pacbay TW guide caght my attention when I was about to order the chrome wire ones, my idea is to order them and asking him if he like them bofore put them on the rod of course, if he dont want them I will put it on my of my own rods, not a problem.

of course I wanted to check first with the masters of AT.com in case there is a catch on those guides, because the price looks too cheap

[Bryan Young]

Those snake guides of heavy wire are perfectly fine, and they will flex with the rod which is even better.

The have lost it's appeal because they look and are cheap but are just as good as any other ss ringed guide.  New braid should not hurt them either as they are usually hardened SS spring material used.  If you want something beefier, in Hawaii, you may want to call Tokunaga's.  They have what we call Hilo Guides http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=5188.0, and are made from SS or Titanium.

[bluefish69]

The wire guides are used up here in NY. I can't remember ever seeing 1 break. Now the Tips are another story, we have approx. 6 a month to have repaired.

Mike

[Swami805]

Shows you what I know. Been building rods in so cal since the 80s,25 years for a local shop, never seen a rod with those guides except a few really old ones.

[Newell Nut]

The PacBay twisted wire guide has long been the standard on party boat rods here in Florida. The VP at Pac Bay told me they only carry them for the Florida market. I built 100 rods with these guides for the Pastime Princess and never had a failure in two years of serious abuse.
I have also built several customs for local guys that will not fish with anything but those guides. Make sure you grind the feet good to help wrapping and you will have to tweak the angle occasionally for them to fit flush on the blank. They are indeed tough and cheap.

Dwight

[steelfish]

thanks guys, thats enough to convince me to jump on those and try them

[thorhammer]

Hey Alex I just recalled I have a set I took off a rod that are in perfect working condition.  I think there are five but I will check tonight. If you want them to see if you like I'll put them in your box next week and you aren't out anything if you don't like.

J

[steelfish]

John,
well let me know if you find them, that would be perfect to see if I can make it work on this rod, as you said, if my friend didnt like them I will use them when restoring another rod, I actually have two friends that run charter boats that might like to use this unbreakable guides, both are really awesome guys.

[steelfish]

well finally got the TW twister pacbay guides, and also got the guide set that John (thorhammer) sent me (thanks buddy), I will put some pictures as reference for the future in case someone is looking for those guides


at the right is the XBG boat guide #16, center pacbay TW #13 and what John said are also Pacbay, which look bit different that the ones I got from Pacbay but they should serve equal







I will start wrapping the rod this week, hopefully I have something to how before xmas

[thorhammer]

Hey Alex, sorry, no idea if they are Pac bay or not, maybe even Mildrum. They came off of a very old rod I had that was in good shape, I think it was a Magnaflex so from the 70's.

[steelfish]

no problem John, if the came from a very old rod and are still in this good shape they should be good to be installed on another rod and last few years more

[Cor]

I see I am a little late with some comment.    These type of guides were quite popular here 20 years ago as we tend to work our tackle very hard.    I had a set made from heavy gauge SS.
They were bombproof, but the downside was that they are heavy and that the line fairly quickly cut grooves in the SS, which eventually cut the line.

I never quite understood how mono could cut the Stainless Steel like that, but considering that we spin fish and make hundreds of cast in a day, perhaps its not so strange.    The weight is an obvious problem when you stand flogging the water for hours on end.