S-T's rod building members: Your opinions please.

[Bob Senior]

I'm building a 13-foot Breakaway for 1-3 oz. lures as a post-holidays project. I have been trying to find out what would be the best guides and their sizes and spacing to maximize casting performance (translated, "distance!"). My past rod projects have all been built using huge Perfection SS guides--and their distances have been tremendous.

Fuji's Website explains their "New Guide Concept." It boils down to smaller guides (their SICs), and more of them (as many as nine guides on a 7 foot spinning rod, for example.) The assumption is that big stainless steel 75, 60, 50, 40 mm, etc. Perfections are too heavy and too non-smooth, and thus lead to shorter casting distance due to wrong weight load on rod and too much line friction, to be as efficient as the newer SIC guides, especially with titanium frames. Even the Hardloys are supposed to be superior to the Perfection SSs.

Fuji explains location of the "choke guide" in their diagrams on their website. I've run the numbers on this idea for a Sustain 4000FB (my new, recently ordered 6000FB has not yet arrived). The conclusion is that the choke guide should be located 41 inches from the reel (it'll be longer for the 6000, but I don't know how much longer yet because I don't know how far the spool is from the rod on a 6000). That's about 3.5 feet. The choke guide, according to Fuji, should be the smallest-ringed guide on the rod. In other words, the larger guides should be between the choke guide and the reel, and a few more that are the same size as the choke guide should be between it and the tip guide.

This would be a weird looking rod! But appearances notwithstanding, Fuji claims it shoud be a superior caster because it follows their new guide concept. It would cost me somewhere around $200 just to buy the guides to do this!

I'd like to ask S-T members who build rods to check out Fuji's system (www.fujitackle.com), and venture an opinion either on S-T or to me by email, as to whether you think it's bogus or not-bogus.

I think it's a flawed system. I have an opinion on how it's flawed, and one on why it was published. But I don't want to get nasty about it.

Ultimately, I still have more faith in a set of huge Perfection SS guides than in three times as many much smaller Fujis on a spinning rig. Also, I don't want to tie up a $140 blank with $200-worth of fancy guides, only to find out the theory is wrong!

'Sorry this is so long.

[JohnR]

I have a couple questions for you and then a couple thoughts... Is the 13' Breakaway (I assume another AllStar blank) really necessary? That's a tall rod under any application but how effective will it be on a 1.5 OZ plug? Even though it's rated 1-3, you certainly aren't loading it at 1 ounce, right?

I have not built a concept guide rod and have only seen a few of them so far. I know MikeT at capecodtackle has worked with a guy that's built a few concept rods. The idea makes sense when you think about it. You're basically coralling the line quickly and reducing line slap through the remainder of the blank. But is there a point where so many more of the small guides necessary for that setup on along rod will create enough additional friction that it negates the advantages of the "concept" setup? You would need something like twelve guides + tip + collector guides for that tall of a rod, maybe more after you do the deflection test.

I'm just throwing things up against the wall here, see what sticks, but that's an awful lot of rod to throw to get smaller plugs, typically not far flyers to begin with, to cast a long way. What are you going to cast? You may have a rod/reel that exceeds the total distance capabilities of your plugs. Some plugs like swimmers aren't going to really go any further that a well built rod br cause they just lack the ooomph to make it the rest of the way. If you have a properly chosen rod that loads up well, say on a 2oz darter, there may be some point where your rod that is 99% optimized for $400 won't offer any advantage over a 90% optimized 10-11' $200 rod.

Distance Tournamnet casting uses weights that are optimized for just that and every few feet you tweak out mean something but you are still limited by your gear. Actually fishing, you might build gear that is too well tuned for fish catching plugs to take advantage of....

I may rebuild my XRA 1205 this spring to tweak it a bit and soup up a mag elite just for that - real distance but it will still be geared to fish. If the fish are beyond the 100 to maybe 125 yards I can get that thing to, I'll just miss them. But 125 yards is almost 400 feet, how much further than that do you need to get? How often can you cast & retreive 300+ feet with a 3oz plug and still
catch fish with an intact shoulder ... I remember a day at the Andrea 2 years ago when I used a 3 oz weight to carry a teaser out to get fish that were 200 feet offshore in a 20-30mph breeze, I got a few but that was real work ....

Again, just my thinking....

[Mike P]

I've been fishing the northeast for almost 30 years. I've never, in all that time, ever seen the need for a 13' rod rated for only 1-3 oz. This season---I never even made a cast with my 11 footers, except when throwing poppers in the Canal. But, different strokes for different folks. To me, a 13' rod's only possible use is throwing "8 and bait" when you need to throw 100 yards to reach the fish. For throwing lures----I'd be toast after 10 casts. And, I'm not a small guy.

But--if you're set on the 13---leave the 75 mm Perfections off it. Today's Perfections are absolute crap--they're plated, not solid stainless, and the plating won't last two seasons. Plus, the welds that hold the ring to the guide feet and bracings don't last even that long. The 50 mm BSVLG Fuji should be fine for the gathering guide.

[Stroth]

I have heard and read the same thing about the perfection guides and I also would really want to think about the length issue????

I have some similar questions: I am building a rod this winter to fish some surf, but mostly the canal. I want it to be able to throw heavy jigs, say 3 to 6 ounces and I want it to be able to handle heavy popper 3oz. and up. it will be matched with an abu 7000 and braided line. I'm 6'3 240 with arms longer than bruce armstrong.

I have two questions.

1. Can I get a rod to do all of these things?
2. Blank Selection.....my heart leans toward lamiglass...either the fiberglass or the s-glass models.....136 3 m..to be specific. Am i on the right track???

All of your help is much appreciated.

Stroth

[Bob Senior]

Mike:

Thanks for your note.

Yuh, I agree that a 13' rod is not your everyday jig thrower. For that I use an Arra.

But in thinking through the guides and their spacing, I happened upon the Fuji new concept idea. It seems that what they call the "choke point" is simply determined by the number and size of guides you use, and not the other way around. When I tried to compute choke point for a Sustain and then for a 4500 SS, I found that the 4500 has a zero degree incidence to the rod, whereas the Sustains have a 4 degree angle of incidence. The result is that the Penn would generate a choke point at infinity by the Fuji method. The Sustain would have a 41-inch choke point. Both on the same rod.

Since I'm sick of replacing the Perfections on an old Lami that I use a lot, for the reasons you mentioned, I think the bsvlg guides are the way to go. The hvsg's and tsvsg's are a little pricey.

I also think I'll let the New Concept thing quietly fade away.

Your ideas are appreciated; have a good winter if it ever gets here.

[Got Stripers]

http://www.rodrack.net/guidespace.html might give you the spacing you want. I've checked it against my own spacing on a couple rods and it's very close. My favorite 7 foot spinning has 8 guides plus a tip-top and I'm firmly in the camp that believes most factory rods blow. Both in number of guides, having the rod splinned correctly and also the spacing.

[Bob Senior]

Thanks, GS. I'll give it a try.

[mikecc]

Bob
I would try a shorter rod also.
Like the XRA 1321 it is rated 7/8 - 3 or and wont kill you casting it.
as for Sic Guides I like the tips but don't think the guides are worth the money.

Bob
If you choose the 1363M cut the tip bact to a #14-16. it will handle the lure sizes you mention better. the most popular rods for the canal are the 1213M fiberglass and Graphite rods XRA 1322 , 1321M , 1201M..


John

I tryed posting earlier and it after writing a longer version of this it loged me out and lost my reply.
Now it keeps coming up with a box that reads
Text to be formatted with the specified SIZE

[JohnR]

OK Mike, let me take a look- anyone else getting booted?

Thanks,


John

[Don M]

Bob Senior:
You can go directly to the Breahaway USA site and find out the guide spacing. Be sure to state if you wish spinning or conventional spacing and what you intend to use the rod for, as most of the Breakaway rods are setup conventional and used for longdistance casting tournaments. Nick Nickaway is the current world champion and will answer any of your questions or steer you in the right direction. Here is the link: http://www.breakawayusa.com/

My partner Charlie built one for himself, not sure if he did spinning or conventional. I will ask him and post back.

BTW we have done a few rods with the fuji new guide concept and the people that have used the rods love them(10 foot spinning rod has 13 guides), claim is 15 to 20% further casting distance. However, there are a couple of drawbacks.

1. You can not use for example, a Penn 704Z the spool diameter is too large. You need to use a small diameter skirted spool.

2. Line diameter and weight are also critical, 20 pound mono is about the heaviest you can use for optimal effectiveness.

Hope this helps,
Don M

[Bob Senior]

Don:

Thanks for your thoughts. I've been in touch with Nick, and also with the Whites at Hatteras Jack's in NC.

I appreciate your comments about the new concept idea. I am currently undecided about whether to pursue it, or just forget about it. That it might work keeps eating at my brain and pushing me into digging into it a little deeper. One conlcusion I've come to is that the Penn SSs have a zero degree angle of incidence to the rod. That messes up the theory because it means, technically, that there is no choke point. The implication of that is that a zero-incidence Penn will always be suboptimal in terms of casting performance (distance).

Sustains have a 4 degree angle and the resulting choke point is therefore very close to the reel. I don't know how realiable the notion is that the choke point is critical to performance.

Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it.

Thanks for your ideas.

[Saltheart]

Well here's my two cents. There is no 13 foot Breakaway that i know of that will toss 1 to 3 OZ. The ones I know of will barely cast the 3 OZ for the low end. They need about 4 to start kicking in.

If you need to add some angle to the Penns you can put a very small shim wedge under the rear of the reel foot.

The guide space formulas from GS's link are nice but you still need to do some work. For example , the formula requires you to decide where to put the gathering guide relative to the reel seat and also requires you to choose which factor best matches your rod. The trouble I see for a big 13 foot heaver is that you'll start by locating the gathering guide further out than anything they would recommend and you will need a factor of 1.2 to 1.25 for a meaty rod like that.

Anyway , I'm thinking the whole idea is not going to work BobS. You'll get more distance from a lighter rod blank. For 1 to 3 OZ you could try an XRA 1204 or a Loomis 1266 (1-4) or a Allstar 1265 (3/4-3)