Conventional Guide Placement or Static Guide Placement

[jurelometer]

J
We have discussed thi before, but your description strikes me a s a perfect point to show the differences in our preferences. In something as light as a bass rod or an inshore rod, I really want the tip and but to be able to bend parallel to each other, if not touch. Just the way I was taught to fish; with that much bend you can really put the brakes on a fish and let the reel hold the line. It does mean that a deck hand will try to keep you from lifting the rod, takes a long slow talk to get them to stop that.

Neither is wrong, just different.
The Man

Hi Ron,

I don't think the particular fighting method  changes the spacing that much.   For a rod that bends safely past 90 degrees,  choosing the right blank is the main ingredient.  Whatever blank is chosen, the rod will be able to safely handle more bend if the guides are spaced to distribute the load as discussed in this thread.  Optimizing for the 90 degree bend as I suggested should give you the best placement for casting.  If you like to bend the rod into a U shape when fighting fish, any guide-on-top-of-the-rod placement is going to be a problem on most blanks, as it will require a lot of guides to keep the line mostly on top, pushing down on a single plane against the blank.    You might want to consider spinning rods or spiral (AKA acid wrapped) guide layouts if that is your intent.   

I don't want to get into another discussion on Ron vs the laws of physics and every long range deckhand    You get to fish however you like - but you might want to take a look at this demonstration:

   I think Mr. Mills reasoning is a bit off base.  The additional power comes  more from the change in leverage than from the muscle groups involved.  You might  consider trying this demo on some one of your own rods.

If you want to optimize a build for an extreme bend,  I would still suggest considering the Meiser method.  I think it will give you the best placement for casting and bends up to 90 degrees.   If you find uneven load bending past 90 degrees, you can try decreasing the Mieser spacing, or simply adjust as you see fit.

  Low Rider guides and the a mixture of Low Rider guides and low single leg guides gives better performance with regards to all aspects of the rods' final use. We get no wind knots, better distance, more rod action and ultimately better control over the fish during the fight. But, the 'closet experts' still chatter that we are 'wrong'!!!

Some of this holds true a bit for conventional also... Jeff

The farther the guides are from the blank, the harder it will be to approximate the natural curve of the bent blank.  Single foot guides means smaller flat spots.  So all this makes sense to me.  Single foot guides do introduce some issues with fly rods.  If you get a tangle while you are trying to clear a fly line after a hookup, you can often pass a pretty big tangle though snake guides, especially if you flip the rod over so that the guides are pointing up, and take out most of the rod bend.  With single foot guides, you are toast.  One or more of your rod sections will be heading out to sea   Larger fly rods have pretty much all gone back to snake guides nowadays.

I think they are catching up with Jeri, because the newer commercial spinning rods are definitely more in the style he describes. 

-J

[Rivverrat]

The farther the guides are from the blank, the harder it will be to approximate the natural curve of the bent blank.  

  This is is where a person building the rod has to know how it's going to be used. A high framed but small ring diameter is very desirable for a stripper guide on say a rail rod used for for stand up & rail.

[Rivverrat]

Which one is taller the 16 LC or the MN 25 monster sized guide. Keeping in mind the LC stripper is sitting higher on thread & lite finish on the under wrap.

 I don't believe much of any thing is gained going with a standard guide 20 or 25 vs the Fuji LC in a lot of instances.  
But there is a definite improvement in how I was doing it compared to now.

Now as we move away from the stripper & second guide high guide frames can cause issues that a lot of times can be felt... Jeff

[Rivverrat]

Your video in essence describes how Kilsong will use a rod & leverage to his advantage. 

  Some one whom I have come to know as a great friend Jamie Massion uses & teaches this method. Hard to believe more people dont use there rods like this... Jeff

[Jeri]

Some folks down here have been using this type of technique for years on big sharks in the surf caught on 14' long rods or longer - its called 'straight sticking'. Takes nearly all the leverage of the rod out of the equation, and puts a lot of stress straight onto the reel - not very effective from a boat, but certainly works well in a beach type situation.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

[Rivverrat]

Yup! It's called by the same name here also Jeri.

[Jeri]

Which one is taller the 16 LC or the MN 25 monster sized guide. Keeping in mind the LC stripper is sitting higher on thread & lite finish on the under wrap.

 I don't believe much of any thing is gained going with a standard guide 20 or 25 vs the Fuji LC in a lot of instances. 
But there is a definite improvement in how I was doing it compared to now.

Now as we move away from the stripper & second guide high guide can cause issues that a lot of times can be felt... Jeff

It wasn't just the height of the ring on the LC guides, but also the smaller diameter of the ring. When we first started down this development route, we used a lot of size 20, but having found that it was all working fine, we looked at the higher version of the size 16, and that worked just as well, even with the big coils coming off large spinner reels.

The key aspect to getting everything working in harmony is to then rapidly reduce the ring sizes and height down to a point where the line is running straight and parallel with the rod blank - during the cast - very much the KR Concept, but on very long rods. Typically now we will use a LC16M, LC10, LC8, then a string of KL8. In getting the spacing absolutely 'dead right', we find that casts are absolutely silent, where braid friction over the guides is hugely reduced - but this is only achieved with getting the spacing right between the guides, and not just the first guide. The 'ramp' section (LC16M, LC10 & LC8) is quite close, even on our very long rods, and we also find that positioning of the first guide to be critical, too close to the reel, and we get a lot of 'backbone' in the rod, but further away gives us extra distance.

There is no exact science in all this, but lots of time spent experimenting does pay off, especially if you can remain objective.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

[Rivverrat]

....It wasn't just the height of the ring on the LC guides, but also the smaller diameter of the ring.....  

There is no exact science in all this, but lots of time spent experimenting does pay off, especially if you can remain objective.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

Jeri, very well stated. You did very well saying what I only attempted. I dont speak well typing.   Yup! with out the smaller ring it would fail. The height plus small diameter is needed to achieve at the stripper position what I feel & see when casting & in some cases has a needed effect on the power the rod produces allowing for a quicker transition to the stronger portion of the blank.

Point I was attempting to make was this guide is not as tall as some think when compared to whats normally used. Jeri, you must be one of the smartest people here because you agree.

At least thats what my grandpa said " Ever notice the smartest person in the room is always the one that agrees with you " he was  not an astronaut or doctor, never made an important discovery of any kind, but as a child when I sat on the throne made of my grandpas lap there was peace on earth & I was surly king of all I surveyed. Hubert C. Davis one of the greatest river cat fisherman ever !

OK I'm way off topic time to hit the rack... Jeff

[jurelometer]

Some folks down here have been using this type of technique for years on big sharks in the surf caught on 14' long rods or longer - its called 'straight sticking'. Takes nearly all the leverage of the rod out of the equation, and puts a lot of stress straight onto the reel - not very effective from a boat, but certainly works well in a beach type situation.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

Works great on a boat for me.  Just point the tip down.  Don't know why some folks are afraid to get the rod tip wet   This technique is more of a flavor of short pumping a fish with some adaption for how much more specific the rod angle needs to be to load up the butt and get any lifting power on a fly rod.     The slow pitch rods that I presume Kilsong is mostly using have loading characteristics similar to fly rods, so it makes sense that the fighting technique would be similar.

Re smaller rings on the bottom end of surf rods:   I don't understand the importance of the smaller ring other than choking down the coils and and feed angle off the spool so that you get rid of line slap on the first guide or two, instead of over and over again all the way up the rod.  I  believe that the distance from the blank to the bottom of the ring not the ring diameter affects how the guide loads the blank.  What am I  missing here?

-J

[Rivverrat]

     The slow pitch rods that I presume Kilsong is mostly using have loading characteristics similar to fly rods, so it makes sense that the fighting technique would be similar.

Re smaller rings on the bottom end of surf rods:   I don't understand the importance of the smaller ring other than choking down the coils and and feed angle off the spool so that you get rid of line slap on the first guide or two, instead of over and over again all the way up the rod.  I  believe that the distance from the blank to the bottom of the ring not the ring diameter affects how the guide loads the blank.  What am I  missing here?

-J

  Cant sleep.

I've yet to do a true long surf rod. I wont speak for Jerry, but  the 10' rods I've played with trying different guides being K's MN's & the LC as a stripper it allows one to move the stripper guide based on what ones after being power or casting distance just based on which guide used & how well it sits on the based on distance from the reel.

 I believe a better style of guide for certain things has yet to be made. What I found "I THINK", is there is rarely a need for an extremely large ring size for a stripper guide on a spinner. At least not as big as some have been using in the past. The small ring stripper helps set the line up for the rest of the guide train when a quick reduction set of guides is used. I  dont know if there is any benefit to this when the upper guides are from the older way of doing it

Yup! I believe your right the higher the bottom of the stripper the quicker the lower, stronger portion of the rod comes into play. Don't think this is much of a debatable point.   Disagree that only slow taper rods or fly rods work best straight sticking. Please correct me If I miss understood.  Though the benefit may be more noticeable on a slow taper lite rod.There is a clip I believe of Kilsong straight sticking a good size tuna. I also know it has worked for me on the beach with some of my heavier very fast tapered rods. My friend Jamie uses it on cows at times.
 
I do believe its a technique that can work very well on a lot of bigger fish when they are out in front of you, regardless of rod when one wants to conserve their energy & keep the fish moving. .

In the end I'm still learning this craft. Always will be.   Still improving the quality of my builds.  Right or wrong I'll not hesitate to throw out there what I think I've seen or might work best. Knowing there is a tremendous amount of knowledge here.  There is more to be learned from a cordial disagreement than an agreement. One might bring a warm fuzzy feeling the other forces a person to explain their position.

I love talking about this stuff not quite as much as doing it though.    OK one more time,  Gotta Hit The Rack... Jeff

[Jeri]

Re smaller rings on the bottom end of surf rods:   I don't understand the importance of the smaller ring other than choking down the coils and and feed angle off the spool so that you get rid of line slap on the first guide or two, instead of over and over again all the way up the rod.  I  believe that the distance from the blank to the bottom of the ring not the ring diameter affects how the guide loads the blank.  What am I  missing here?

-J

The essence is to rapidly reduce the disruptive coils down, but more to get the whole set up working into some sort of harmonic action - rod, reel and line. Something that we have seen, and only on rods with LC guides as the first 3, is get it all right and the large coils coming off the reel approach the first guide, and shortly there after a reversing effect takes place, where either due to 'echo' of some other factor, a much smaller coil 'grows' away from the first guide back towards the handle and reel - this takes place during the highest speed period of sinker/lure flight and really does seem to add considerable distance. Have never seen this 'reverse cyclone' effect on any other guide schemes, and it generally appears when we have fine tuned the spacing for a particular blank 'just right' - for both distance and power.

Having been building long surf rods with LC guides for over 7 years now, I would certainly not entertain going to a large first guide, for fear of losing performance. We did carry out a whole series of tests on a small 12' 3oz surf rod, using traditional 'Cone of Flight' designs, and then 'K' series and finally a LC/KL hybrid scheme. the LC/KL scheme came out by far the best solution, the other two schemes lost distance and had numerous issues with line slap and wrapping line around guides.

It is just what we have found, and perhaps a contributory factor is that the blanks that we are using are less through action than typical American surf blanks, so significantly more powerful in the lower half.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

[philaroman]

WOW, tell me more about the smaller-ringed/taller/shorter reduction train for longer spinning rods

could I substitute K Spinning w/ Fuji Match Guides (photo is stock Fuji Alconite BNMVOG; BNMVAG )

I guess mine are older ALO2, when there was only one version somewhere between the two;

the 20's & 12's have thin liners, so the actual ceramic rings look closer to 16 & 10

[Ron Jones]

Re smaller rings on the bottom end of surf rods:   I don't understand the importance of the smaller ring other than choking down the coils and and feed angle off the spool so that you get rid of line slap on the first guide or two, instead of over and over again all the way up the rod.  I  believe that the distance from the blank to the bottom of the ring not the ring diameter affects how the guide loads the blank.  What am I  missing here?

-J

The essence is to rapidly reduce the disruptive coils down, but more to get the whole set up working into some sort of harmonic action - rod, reel and line. Something that we have seen, and only on rods with LC guides as the first 3, is get it all right and the large coils coming off the reel approach the first guide, and shortly there after a reversing effect takes place, where either due to 'echo' of some other factor, a much smaller coil 'grows' away from the first guide back towards the handle and reel - this takes place during the highest speed period of sinker/lure flight and really does seem to add considerable distance. Have never seen this 'reverse cyclone' effect on any other guide schemes, and it generally appears when we have fine tuned the spacing for a particular blank 'just right' - for both distance and power.

Having been building long surf rods with LC guides for over 7 years now, I would certainly not entertain going to a large first guide, for fear of losing performance. We did carry out a whole series of tests on a small 12' 3oz surf rod, using traditional 'Cone of Flight' designs, and then 'K' series and finally a LC/KL hybrid scheme. the LC/KL scheme came out by far the best solution, the other two schemes lost distance and had numerous issues with line slap and wrapping line around guides.

It is just what we have found, and perhaps a contributory factor is that the blanks that we are using are less through action than typical American surf blanks, so significantly more powerful in the lower half.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

I would love to see a super slow motion video of the reverse cyclone.

Ron Jones

[steelfish]

pretty interesting reading amigos

keep comentings, its always nice to learn directly from the professionals

[Newell Nut]

Alex,

I recently built myself a cool Hercules 15-30 rod for flat lining kings. First stripper is the taller LC Fuji turned reverse and then finished the rod out with Fuji MNSGs. Line flows perfectly lifting a 12 lb dumbbell.

Dwight