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Spiral Wrap Surf Rod Results
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Bill Falconer
Registered: June 2006
Posts: 48
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We had a great week with our spiral wrapped surf rods in Seaside, including putting three sharks over 6' on the beach. But this was the largest - a 7'7" nurse shark.
While this nurse did make make the runs our Blacktips and Bulls did, it was still a tough fish. Twenty minutes into the fight, she really hunkered down and did not want to come over the second sandbar. After 5 minutes of stalemate, I locked the drag and started backing up. I figured I had to either get it over the bar or break it off. I have never leaned on a fish as hard as I leaned on this one - I was literally sitting down against the belt / rod. You can see that the rod got the job done.
This experience sold me on the spiral wrap set up for surf rods and I will never build another one with guides on top. Again, many thanks to Bob McKamey, Tom K. and RodMaker Volume 7 #1.
Also thanks to my leader man, Trey Falconer. While he's still a sissy doctor, he proved to be a pretty good tail roper. For purposes of historicall accuracy, please note that all of his fish were smaller than this.
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| · Date: Wed June 28, 2006 · Views: 2,889 · Filesize: 45.4kb, 470.4kb · Dimensions: 2500 x 1844 ·
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Keywords: sprial wrap, surf rod, cord grip, O'Quinn
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Tom Kirkman
Registered: March 2005
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 1,567
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Wed June 28, 2006 11:06am
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Nice fish. I still hear folks say that you can't successfully use the spiral wrap on a surf rod. Hopefully your photos will show them the error of their ways. I've built hundreds of surf rods over the years and only wish I had started spiral wrapping them sooner. It's a better way to fish.
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Bill Falconer
Registered: June 2006
Posts: 48
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Wed June 28, 2006 11:29am
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I couldn't agree more. Clearly spiral wrapped rods are more effective as fish fighting tools. The other thing that these photos don't show that is so critical for surf rods is that a properly executed spiral DID NOT HURT MY CASTING DISTANCE.
Guide set up is always a compromise - you want light weight, maximum casting distance, fish fighting ability, fishing comfort and durability. You can have some of all but emphasizing one often hurts another. Based on my experience with more than 50 test casts, these spiral set ups cast every bit as well as the best guides on top set-up I was comfortable using.
To be clear, I could get more distance using just 6 guides, but the rod did not distribute the load effectively with that set up. I believe the rod could have been broken under load using the 6-guide set up that proved longest-casting. So, I tweaked it until I had good static distribution and test casted it. I lost about 6% of casting distance but that was worth it for a rod that can actually reel fish in once I cast to them.
The appropriate guides on top set up casted the same (within 1%) as the spiral set-up that appropriately distributed load. So, for me it gave me better stability with no cost in casting distance.
I know that 50 casts seems like a low number but that's a lot of casting with a 6 or 8 ounce weight when you have to retrieve 100+ yards of line every time on a non-level wind reel. It took three days, some muscle cramps and one goose seriously wounded to get that data recorded.
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