I know this has been written about endlessly and I have read the archives on this but I still have some questions abotu using ceramic guides on lighter weight rods. I am building an 8ft, 4wt, 3pc rod and am having trouble deciding between pacbay single ft. chrome and sic guides. Cost aside, it seems like the pacbay have a much shorter ft (less thread) and weigh less than the sic guides. In talking to some guys who build a lot of these rods, they felt the most important factor in rod performance is keeping the wraps short and the weigh off the blank. Most on this board favor the ceramics.

Since I am only building a few rods it is hard to test these theories...

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

John

If you can get by without adding additional weight then by all means do so. However, if the additional of a little weight means you will gain some performance advantages in other ways then it is worth considering.

The additional weight of ceramic single foot guides in the smaller sizes and particularly when the wraps are kept short and finish to a minimum is very slight. The very small bit of performance that you might actually lose may be offset by a savings in line wear, the fact that the guides will never have to be replaced (save for damage from abuse) and a bit smoother surface for your line to run across.

Everything we do on a rod is some sort of compromise, at least if we expect the rod to perform more than just one function. And most times it has to do just that - perform several functions well. Cast a line, fight a fish, not fatigue the anger, and hold up to the expected useage.

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