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Posts: 214
Location: Beaver County, Pennsylvania | anyone have any of these custom rods out there with spiral guides......?
pro's/con's? | |
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Posts: 1756
Location: Mt. Zion, IL | I have some for bass and i really like them. The one I use the most is a Bud Erhardt custom rod for Carolina Rigs, but the idea behind spiral guides is that it reduces torque on the upper half of the blank by pulling straight down instead of causing the blank to sort of roll under high tension loads. I highly recommend them. | |
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Posts: 190
| I have built them before for bass guys. I'm not sold on the idea for musky. when your fishing bass worming or jigging or even using a crank bait, you set the hook up. In musky fishing your generally setting the hook to the side or if your figure 8 ing your pulling the fish. Muskies hit the way they want to have you have to set the hook in whatever direction you can with your 8' er. You could also try it, but I'm not sure you will get the benefit the bass guys get out of them. I is pretty cool watching a hi viz line spool out of them.
my 2 cents | |
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Posts: 214
Location: Beaver County, Pennsylvania | thanks, i was looking at this guys rod on jacksonlures site and was wondering if the concept would work for musky....i have heard of bass rods but this is the first i've saw one designed for musky.
http://www.musky.com/Features/customrods.htm | |
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Posts: 457
| It's an intresting concept that I can't say I buy into at all. The theory is about elimination of flat spots, creating a perfect parabolic curve with the blank. Doesn't happen, you still have flat spots at contact points. The makers of inner-cast type rods had a great theory, line running through the blank with a rifling effect, eliminate flat spots, right? Not so much...
The other thing, is that it has been shown (I'll try to find the website, I think it was on Daiwa or shimano) to reduce distance and casting accuracy becaue it does the exact oposite of the claims that spiral rod guides make: a reduction in friction. Spiral rod guides increased line slap, overlay, and overall friction. They had a robot test, the whole nine yards. This is some years ago, when it wsa a fad to do, and it seems there are a few that hand on to it, and a few more coming back to make it popular again...
Anyhow, not what they are made out to be. To each their own, though. | |
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| Actually, the real benefit of spiral wrapped rods is not what you mentioned about the flat spots. The real beauty of spiral wrapped guides is that the rod will not want to twist around while fighting a fish. What I mean is this...
With any baitcast rod where the guides are on the top, the natural tendancy when put under a load is to want to "flip" over so the guides face down like a spinning rod. You may not notice this since it is easily countered by squeezing the rod when you hold it. To fully understand what I am saying, get one of your rods, pull some line through the guides and hook it onto something on the ground. Set your drag accordingly and try to lift against the drag without gripping the rod. Just push it up with the palm of your hand. You will notice that the rod will "flip" over onto its other side.
What the spiral does is put those guides on the bottom where it will not create the unwanted torque. You would be surprised how hard you grip a rod to keep it from twisting. The spiral wrap makes it simpler. It's hard to explain without ever fishing with one, but suffice it to say that with more drag pressure, the more a spiral wrap benefits. I would think muskie rods would be a pruime canidate for this practice. | |
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Posts: 8855
| B...
I get what you are saying, but do muskie rods really need to be built for fighting fish? Muskies don't fight very hard, they don't fight very long, and you don't catch them all that often. Most of the time you're making short casts and trying to be very accurate in how you place those casts. The thing muskie rods need to be built for is casting big lures and doing figure 8's, because that's what you're doing for 10 hours straight. Now if I was fishing wrecks out on the gulf of Mexico in 70 feet of water, where a 30 pound king mackeral can kick your butt, and you might catch 20 fish in one night? You bet I'd have spiral wrapped rods, because the only work you do is fighting fish, and you have to get that fish up out of that wreck or you'll lose it. But muskie fishing? Never tried one, but I can't imagine it would make that much difference for that 5 minutes out of 10 hours where you're actually fighting fish. | |
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Posts: 132
| Spiral wraps are all I use now on any baitcasting rod, Musky, Bass, Steelhead, whatever. "B" has it right in his post. It reduces torque.
It has been proven that many times a rod that is broken on a hookset (like a sucker strike) is not a shear break. It's a torque break. With the quides on top on a sharp hookset, they want to turn over and thus twist the blank. Rods can take a lot of bending, but not much twisting.
It takes the torque off your wrist just from reeling all day.
One other thing is weight, especially on longer rods. Once you get the line under the blank you can go to single foot guides with a single wrap. It reduces the weight in the tip end significantly.
As far as line slap, if the spiral transition is done right, there is NO line slap or contact AT ALL.
As far as accuracy, I believe for the average guy it will improve their accuracy. The most accurate casting is done with a conventional guides on top placement and the spline exactly 90 degrees off the top of the rod and you cast with the handles perfectly straight up and the back your hand parallel with the water. I just dont see that much.
I was told by a couple of the big rod manufactures that right now it just looks too wierd on the rod for most consumers. That same thing was said about split grips, no fore-grips, etc, which are now becoming mainstream.
Musky fishermen are the last to embrace the spiral wrap from what I can see.
Edited by Partycrasher 5/12/2008 1:09 PM
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Spiral guide rods