Bob Riggins
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I use SIC guides on saltwater spinning rods without any problem, in fact, I have never heard of anyone having a problem with them.
This one would be an 8wt or 9wt, built for speed and distance for saltwater beach and flats fishing.
I use single foot guides almost exclusively on my fly rods. If I do this rod, I will probably use Fuji titanium gold cermet guides. They are much lighter and harder than SIC guides, but also considerably more expensive. I’m also thinking of using an exposed blank reel seat, a la, the Cabelas L-Tech and a woven graphite grip and fighting butt.
Most of my rods are traditional, but this one would be way out of the box.
To be honest, I used to be turned off by fishing competitions, but when you think about it, it is like competition in sports, business or any human endeavor.
There are two forces that reduce line speed when shooting line, one is friction against the guides and the other is line sag between the guides that causes the line to slap against the guides as it is shooting out.
I build mostly fly rods but I also built spinning rods (primarily for inshore flats fishing). Once I got into the types of conventional rods I found it was mind boggling. For example, I build on Batson Rainshadow blanks a lot. If you go to their website you will see they have 8 series of fly rod blanks. Then look at the conventional blanks. There are 26 different series of blanks. That is over 3 times as many as fly blanks and their fly blanks cover about everything but fiberglass and bamboo.
http://www.batsonenterprises.com/
It is a mistake to think you can walk into Walmart and see just about everything there is in conventional tackle. That is just cheap stuff for novices. Serious conventional tackle fishermen are as particular about their gear (and spend as much) as fly fishermen. It is just that a higher percentage of fly fishermen are “serious” compared to conventional fishermen, but there are a hell of a lot more conventional fishermen.
Again, from a builder’s perspective, a blank can be built as any of the three types of rods. I even have a 7’6″, 8wt built about 15 years ago (before the current bass fly rod craze), that was built on a light spinning rod blank. Once the rod is built, however, it is either a fly rod, a spinning rod or a casting rod. The grip, reel seat and guide setup are particular to the type rod it is.
There are three important ratings on the rod, line test rating, lure weight rating and action. Line test rating a lure weight rating tend to track the same with small variations in different rod types. The term action is the same as in fly rods and relates to flex characterics and recovery rate.
For example, I use 7′ popping rod blanks for saltwater flats spinning rods. It will have a light tip, medium-fast recovery rate and be more mid flex(something like a 7.5 if you used the Orvis scale). A 7′ bass rod of similar line weight and lure weight have a faster recovery rate, stronger butt and would be more tip flex (more like a 9 on the Orvis scale).
So, you can see, that once you dig into it, there is a lot more variation in conventional tackle rods than there is in fly rods. One thing I find very interesting about conventional fishermen, they don’t like multi piece rods. I really can’t figure this out with modern ferrule design. All of my spinning rods are either 2 or 3 piece, which is very unussual.
I’m an old geezer. My wife just informed me I’m officially a senior citizen (I turned 62 on September 28). I definately know how to use a computer, so I guess some youngsters can write. 😉
James, thanks for chiming in.
