XRA 1205 w/low rider guides
 

i know some one has had to of wrapped a rod like this. if you have, how has your experience with it been so far?

That would be Back Beach. If you're going to drift eels it helps to have something interesting to look at.

On a more useful note, if you go with them, the SS ones (LCSG) are supposedly fairly heavy. The Titanium ones (T-LCSG's) are what the rod gurus use.....but a set will run you about 120-150 bucks. They also have a long foot print and will stiffen your rod some. Supposedly spacing is a challenge on rods less than 11 feet and often ends up being reel specific.

They also come in alconite low riders. Most of my current rods have the alconite low riders.

Its just like Numbskull said, I can't stop looking at it even though it never bends.

The low rider bandwagon .... mostly wrongly applied , even when properly applied got a former world record holder only 6 extra yards out of 210 , can potentially really screw up your fishing.... Same with Titanium framed guides. I have Lami's built 25 years ago with hardloy rings and painted Stainless steel frames. Now tell me again why you would consider spending $120 to $150 on these titanium guides? :confused:

I just don't understand this desire to jump on all the new gimmicks.

You want to improve the pefformance of a 1205 rod?...use SiC guides.
You want to cast 6 more yards? Practice more....... I once stood next to Ron Arra who was outcasting me by a mile using a 1205 with about 10 inches broken off the tip!! No low riders and a broken rod !! :)

:uhuh: That's the way to go.

I did build an XRA 1205 with lowriders, but used regular alconite casting guides for the last 4 guides. All in all the tip is much lighter and responsive, distance gain is neglible at best, and the setup is no better than any other as far as I can determine.

The old style XRA1205 I built was in the hands of a good fisherman last night(fishing right next to me) and I got my butt whipped, even with my fancy new rod and lowriders. I did take a quality dogfish though...not sure it counts due to the fact I foul hooked it.:behead:

I agree regular alconite is worth looking at. Small increase in price , no change to rod layout , a little lighter so potentially a faster tip recovery. For all the same reasons that's why I suggested SiC above. Even lighter than alconite , better polish and heat dissipation , modest increase in price , no change to rod layout. Drawback is a loss in toughness vs hardloy.

Titanium on a big spinner is like putting hot fudge on a pile of shiit. The damn thing already weighs a ton, spending an extra 80 bucks on high end guides won't help. Been there, done that.

I do like SIC, though. Hardaloy feels like molasses in comparison.

for the less educated, what is a low rider guide?

it is like this? :D

This reminds me of mtn bikes and I'm sure road bikes are the same. they get to a certain point and the cost to lose wt goes up geometrically along with the cost to maintain.
A friend of mine said the cheap way to make a bike 10#s lighter is take it off your butt. In this case it would be better casting technique.

hmm im gonna go back to the original idea of a gsb1201M with SiC guides then. now should i just get the HVSG surf guides or can put the NSG casting guides on there?

1201M
 

GREAT all-round blank.

I built one last summer with BMNAGs (40, 25, 16, 12, 10, 10, 10) and absolutely love the rod. NOTE- this is a braid only rod with these small guides.

It casts very well and with so many contact points for the line it is very sensitive.

Gsb 120 1L or XRA 1205

We need to know the intended application. What weight range lures is most important since the 120 1L is about a 1/2 to 3 rod while the XRA is about a 2 to 5 OZ rod . Big difference. If you are tossing 2 you want the GSB if you are tossing 3 you want the 1205 if you are tossing 4 and 5 you need the 1205.

So what do you plan to do with this rod?

casting
 

Isn't casting distance more a product of how well you load up on the blank. I have some beach glass rods 11 footers cut to 9 for throwing heavy lead into big wind, I can lag these babys slowly behind me like a coiled spring. Almost go as far as my 11 foot xra's.

Screw lowriders.........check out this new Fugi bling (Sic/Ti.....$$$$?)
Neat design and sizes. Can't wait for BackBeach to bite on 'em and let us know what's up. (Pictures borrowed from a thread on SOL by a good rod builder). Thinking is they are meant primarily for short tuna sticks and big reels.

at this point i think its going to be the GSB1201M. i did a lot of research on the arra's and all i keep reading is problems people have breaking them. one of my favorite spots is a good mile and a half walk if not more and for a rod to break out there would just ruin an outing. i fish the jetties down here, lots of boulder fields and open beach. i mainly throw plugs in the 2 to 3.5 range and sling eels. i do throw the bombers and mag darters but where i fish those i am really only concerned about getting them out 30 to 40 yards. from everything i have read about the gsb people love it and for my first custom i think it should be a good choice. the low riders are also out for this particular rod.

I love my GSB 1201M with hardloys. You wont be dissappointed if you go that route. I have really beaten the snot out of the rod over the past year while wet-suiting, and it is no worse for the wear.

I think the ARA rods get a bad rap on breaking. The only one I have seen break is a 1083. That was by people lifting fish. I have heard of the 1084 breaking but I believe they cahnged that model to be more durable.

The 1205's don't break as far as I know. When I reference Ron Arra fishing with a breaken one , apparently it got caught in a ceiling fan at a rod building show.

Anyway , the GSB120 1M is a great rod. You'll like it.

I broke a 1204 a couple months ago, about a foot down from the tip, as I set the hook into a schoolie bass...... not fun

Ti sic guides are well worth the $ if you fish anywhere where it is more than a 15 minuet walk back to your vehicle to get another rod because you took a spill and cracked a guide. Not that the ti sics can't be cracked but they are very durable and will take some serious abuse. Too bad they don't make anything over a 25 in it. My first 2 guides the 50 hardaloy and the 40 regular sic would be ti sic also if they made them.

Look at my post above and you may be happy.....until you see the price for a Ti 50 ( @ $90). Also, Titanium is not stronger by volume than steel.......a similar frame will weigh less, corrode less, but bend easier than a SS frame. It has also become pretty clear that you don't need a 50 collector guide (or even a 40 for that matter) on a rod intended for braid. The new large fuji Ti guides are meant for tuna spinning sticks where they will be mounted very close to the reel.

Update on my 1205 w/lowriders
 

I did have a bunch of issues with the first guide at 36", so I took all the lowriders(20-16-12) off and put bmnag's (40-25-16) in their place. Pretty sure it(lowrider setup) was a design flaw on my part. The rod cast real well, but during a couple eel fishing trips I had multiple wind knots, something I had never experienced before. Next time I will lay the rod out with the first guide at 40" and see what happens. For now I need something fool proof as I hate cutting line off and re-rigging while my partner is bailing big dogfish.

That would be God telling you something :uhuh:

I knew that was coming...thankfully it wasn't another one of your diatribes...:behead:

I have done allot of research and experimenting with the low rider concept. I have an all star 1209 with a modified low rider setup and over the winter I built an SSU 132 1MH with the low rider SiC's, not titanium. I am not a pro, I have not built hundreds of rods, (maybe 25), but I have definately found the low rider system interesting.

Here's a nice thread on the lami site. If the link is against rules please remove it moderators:

http://www.lamiglas.com/node/292

First question: Are you only throwing with braid? If no, then build it traditional, I do not see any advantages of low riders with MONO.

IMHO, braid totally changes the game here. Getting wind knots? Hearing FWAPPA FWAPPA when you cast? The traditional five guide setup was not made for braid. The braid has no memory and no stretch it comes off of the reel like a rocket....

I have done the side by sides as have others with a low rider setup and a traditional one. Every time I have done it the lowriders have won. Is it by ten yards, maybe, but hey it is still ten yards!

For me a custom rod is just that, a custom rod. You want a 1205 custom with five guides, you can go to any number of shops on the cape and get a 'custom' setup like that for pretty short money. Or you can design and build something yourself that is truly unique and IMHO will perform better.

My 1209 came out great. I absolutely love it. The issue I have had with the SSU is that it came out a little top heavy. This was most likely my fault though as I over applied the epoxy on the first two guides.

When I have fished the ssu most wind knots have been my error. With my setup it is fairly easy to lose tension on the line. Working a pencil for example, if you are not careful some knots will ensue.....

Good luck with your build! Search around on the other site and there is an absolutely ton of info there.

One thing I would look at is getting the low rider concept out of smaller diameter guides. In other words, do not use LCSG's, but something else to still get that low profile....

Any thoughts on how this setup would benefit / detract from eeling distance?

The 132 rod is a rod I might consider a low rider set up. Its long enough. If the rods are short , you cannot really place the gathering guide where it should be in a low rider setup unless the rod is super fast action. Any bend down low and a guide pushed out to 43 (low rider type location) and you can start to worry about touching and the ultimate disaster , crossing the nuetral axis of the blank.

Now a 1209 with low riders makes no sense to me at all. A 1209 is for casting 4 to 6 and sometimes to 8. For long casting that kind of weight , you must have a shock leader (not just a fishing leader although a shock leader can be a fishing leader but not nescessarily vicse versa). A shock leader for say 6 ounces must be about a 60 LB mono or Flouro. That leader should come all the way down the rod and around the spool. That means that the leader knot must go through the guides so IMO the low rider small guides near the tip are out. This is the type of rod along with most short rods and any moderately slow to slow action blank where the low rider concept is misapplied.

As far as spending $90 on a titanium guide well if I ever do that I hope my fishing biddies will have me committed to an asylum because Thats NUTS!! :)

The general statement about the properties of the Titanium in the guides being stronger than stainless may or may not be true. It depends on the chemical composition of the Titanium and stainless and the processing history of both. However , I do not believe that the titanium frame makes a SiC ring any less likely to crack if bashed against a rock. In fact the modulus of elasticity is lower for titanium so any given load or shock impulse causing deformation of the metal guide frame will cause more deformation of the titanium ring and thus more chance for the ceramic insert to break. Strength has nothing to do with how much the ring will deform do to a shock or impact . Strength will determine whether is springs back to its original shape after the event but has nothing at all to do with how much it will bend do to a given load on the initial deformation.

Lastly , the rod with the concept build and the smaller gathering guide at 36 inches simply is not a concept build. It s aconventional build using concept guides. The plan to move it out to 40 inches is a move in the right direction but I think it needs to be even further out. A small guide too close to the reel will cause problems. That's why in a conventional build we use bigger guides and why in a concept build the small guide is pushed so far out.

I didn't see johns question as I was typing above.

I doubt it would make any difference to you at all. If you have a short rod , like 9 feet (short for a concept application) the low rider concept layout will most likely screw things up. If you have a rod maybe 11 feet , you can do the LR concept layout well but can you really power cast the eel that way without loosing it. Even if you can get power into it without a cast off , you might get 5 yards extra.

Now if you were casting metal at fish 150 yards out and just 6 more yards might get you there , then maybe a concept layout would help you. How many times that you fish do you need to cast 150 yards other than the canal. And in the very low percentages of times you need that distance , how often would 6 more yards make a difference. The conditional probabilities of it being any use to you eeling are probably in the range of 2 %.

At the canal where you may want the max distance , the leader knot issue represents a problem for application of the low rider concept.

Low riders are for places like England and maybe Japan where they use 13 foot rods and must get way out all the time to be in the game at all. When stripers are normally at your feet , why deal with the negative sides of applying the Low Rider Concept. If you need more distance for eeling , get a longer rod. Assuming you can handle the added length , you will get a bigger improvement by going longer than by going Low Rider