Something Different

[Jeri]

Ultra-light spin (for me anyway)

Just finished building and testing a seriously ultra-light spinning rod on a blank one of our suppliers has developed. It is 7'-2" long, 2 piece construction, and in my eyes like a thin stick of uncooked black spaghetti.

The butt is only 11mm diameter and the tip less than 2mm, seriously light by very reactive, but with some element of backbone once loaded.

In looking at the build, opted for one of the new sectional Fuji reel seats, and to answer a possible question about the validity of KR Concept over NGC, we ordered 2 sets of guides, both going down to size 5, but with a very rapid reduction for the KR set, from size 16 down.

Taping guides on the blank and field testing the NGC set up was OK, but nothing out of the ordinary, using a 4000 size reel with 25lb braid straight through. Change to KR and see what happened, but with a personal change to moving the first (stripper) guide well up onto the upper section. Testing with 10 and 20 gram sinkers for the field work seemed to just fly, watching the line flow as coils approached the first guide, even with the much shortened flight time, we could see the reverse coil situation starting to happen, so very pleased. Once built and all cured, testing with a little more enthusiasm, we found that we were getting 50-60 meters with both sinker weights respectively, which was pretty impressive. A friend tested in the salt water lagoon at Walvis Bay, and found that the tip and action was impressive with a small micro popper, and reckon that the rod was overall very impressive.

A nice development project, though not particularly applicable to our coastal fishing here in Namibia, but the friend that tested it in the lagoon, was sure that it would be ideal for the predatory species of Bream that are found on the Zambezi and the Okavango rivers, as well as the odd mid-sized Tigerfish.

Looking at why the KR concept was working, is pretty much down to overall line speed during the cast, which approximates to about 30 meters per second. The 2 second flight time and distances produced seem to suggest that this sort of line speed is elemental in getting high performance out of the KR schemes.

We'll be going back to our slightly heavier sinker builds for longer rods now.......

[steelfish]

11mm butt seems pretty thin !!

do you have any pictures of the rod  or is still under R&D and not ready to be shown?

[Jeri]

The 11mm butt is correct, had to get a couple of 16x10 and 16x11 spacers for the reel seat closures. Hence the reference to 'black spaghetti' - it was really thin. The thin nature is due to the use of T35 carbon, very strong with a fast action and recovery.

The development was for another company, so i'm not at liberty to publicise; they are going to take the design forward - I was just asked for options on guide selection and spacing to get performance, as it is not really a style of rod we sell at all on the coast.

Edit: The point of putting this up was to perhaps answer the question of ultra-light applications of KR over NGC. We tried both schemes, and found that there was significant improvement with the KR.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Thank you Jeri, for being scientific. Apples to apples comparisons such as this using the same blank but different guides are very useful for a proper comparison.

So you still use the sz 16 as the largest reducer even for a shorter rod? Are you still placing the reel at the bottom like you do on your longer rods? And what's your separation between reel seat and 1st guide for this one?

11mm butt isn't that much smaller than the rod i built for bass fishing. It's not thaaat unreasonable.

[Swami805]

Yes, thank you Jeri for posting, I've used some of your concepts on my personal rods, big improvement.    Have a blank and parts for a light rod for surf fishing with a spinning reel, hope to get it started when the last few guides show up.

[Jeri]

Thank you Jeri, for being scientific. Apples to apples comparisons such as this using the same blank but different guides are very useful for a proper comparison.

So you still use the sz 16 as the largest reducer even for a shorter rod? Are you still placing the reel at the bottom like you do on your longer rods? And what's your separation between reel seat and 1st guide for this one?

11mm butt isn't that much smaller than the rod i built for bass fishing. It's not thaaat unreasonable.

No choking experienced with the sz 16, so it is not being a problem.

12" to the bottom of the reel seat, sort of a short butt for occasional 2 handed casting. If I wanted a more traditional 18" butt section, I would just push the whole guide train up another 6".

Then 26" from front of reel seat to the first guide, and 50" from the front of the reel seat to the theoretical 'choke point', not that I was at all interested in the 'choke point', but more the spacing of the 3 reduction guides within themselves.