I thought I remembered seeing this question before but couldn't find it in a search.

This morning I mounted the reel I intend on using on a 7' spinning rod I've started, removed the spool, and lined up the "axle" with the edge of a table to find the intersection. Unfortunately, the intersection would be 6" or so beyond the tip.

What are my options?

Move the intersection point back, to the tip, or just behind that and form a straight line path from the butt guide to the intersection guide.

Sometimes you have to adjust and compromise to account for certain reels.

And there is also the option of off-centering your reel seat or shimming to get the reel spool aimed a few more degrees upwards.

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Yes, Tom is right here (as always). Some reels have a shaft that runs parallel to the rod. Therefore there is no convergence point of the line flow and guide arrangement. Accordingly there will be a restriction of line regardless of where the guides are placed. A good excuse to get a new reel that has a 4-7 degree converging angle to the rod.

Capt. Harold

Thanks, but I'm not always right. When you have made as many mistakes as I have you are bound to learn something. I've made a lot of rod building mistakes.

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Tom - the more mistakes you make and write about the less the rest of us will have to suffer through. And thanks in advance.

I'm in favor of Tom's suggestion of shimming the reelseat (after you loosen the fit of the arbors first) to make the convergance point further back from the tip. Goodluck.

I shimmed it a little and I'm going to fudge a little. As long as I have enough guides, the only thing that this will affect is casting distance, right?

BTW, I bought this blank and reel for a specific purpose - livebaiting King Mackeral, Amberjack, and Cobia. Only for Cobia is casting distance any issue. I knew when I bought the reel that it would be more at home on a 10' rod, but I wanted both line capacity and larger drag of this reel to handle big Kings and maybe an occasional Wahoo, and at the same time, I don't like using rods longer than 7' from the boat. I guess it's all about which compromise you're willing to make.

I'll place the guides and do some test casts with an approximate weight.

Thanks for the help!

What kind of reel was it?

Has anyone compiled a list of reels and the ANGLES they make with the rod? (It shouldn't be too hard to figure out from a couple of measurements--intersection distance x and height of spindle h, tan-1(angle)=h/x)

That compilation would be useful, no?

Tom,

The reel's spool angle isn't the only variable. Rod tapers effect this also. The combination of all the reel angles and all the different rod tapers is large number. It is so easy to find an intersection, or in the case above, not find one, the time to make charts isn't worth it, at least to me.

Bill Doherty

That's why I don't bother with charts. It is a matter of maybe 10 seconds to locate the intersection point by the method I advocate. Rod taper will not affect the intersection point however, although reel seat size will.

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OK, in defense of charts . . .

(1) I can hardly believe rod taper has much of an effect on the intersection point, or the reel angle. Heck, when I do it there's a good deal of 'slop' in sighting down the axis of the reel to ensure it's parallel to the edge of a table.

(2) I'm not suggesting that anyone use a chart to determine the intersection point, but to decide what reel to buy. If the intersection point turns out to be 4 inches from the end of the rod then I'd imagine there's not much benefit to the New Concept system. If you want to use the New Concept system, then I think it's pretty important to use a reel that intersects your rod far enough away from the tip to take advantage of all those small, light guides that will be used beyond the intersection point. That's why I asked what kind of reel it was.

The New Guide Concept System is better, plain and simple. I have some shorter freshwater rods where the intersection point is only 5 or 6 inches back from the tip and the rod still comes out noticeably lighter and casts farther.

What I'd like to see is an article in Rodmaker on how we can alter our seat mounting or shim our reels to set our own spool angle. That would be a real custom touch that could result in extra performance!