I've been building a lot of 8 and 9wt rods lately for striper, blues and reds. Following the principle Tom teaches--fewest, lightest, least--I'm averaging 9 or 10 guides and have recently dropped down to using a #12 stripper, a #10 (4" from the stripper), one or two #8's, and then #7's on out (or 3's in PB single ft wire loop guides). Now I'm no expert, and don't even own a 9wt myself, but those smaller guides seem to give ample room for the diameter of the line. Will a saltwater fly rod expert chime in here to confirm I'm not undersizing?
Larger looped guides and tips seem to be the trend in manufacturer's rods and I want to make sure I'm not taking things too far the other direction.

P.S. I know the solution is to test cast with both and see which handles best, but my personal fly reel and line collection stops at a 6wt. I need the help of the board on this one.

I would suggest getting a cheap reel and have some 7,8,9,and 10 wt lines.. Im like you I dont fish with anything over 6wt but I have reels loaded with the above line so I can test cast rods I build.. I pick up old reels at flea markets and I buy line on closeouts, but dont buy Fenwick line, I have had trouble with this line.. Thanks Dave's Rods

If the line passes through it okay then there's nothing wrong with it. I think larger guides are only meant for allowing big knots to go through like your leader connection or where the backing connects to a shooting head or something. I have been using #7's on my rods up to 10-wgts and have no complaints. They cast and fish great. I think you should up the stripping guide from a 12 to a 16 though. No knot or tangle is going to go through even oversize running guides but sometimes it seems like the 16 stripper does something to knock the tangle out when it hits it. Sometimes it doesn't though and in those cases I don't think anything would have helped.

Rob,

I'm not any kind of an expert, so when I built my 9 wt., I followed the advice I found here. I ended up using much smaller guides than a 'normal' rod has, finishing as you did with #7s. I used single foot 'spinning' type guides for the strippers.

Anyway, I can cast this rod about 100 to 110 feet, and I'm just learning to double haul.

I went to a casting clinic this last weekend, and the 'expert' ( a guy named Tom Wolfe-I don't know who he is, but apparently he's a 'name' in the fly fishing industry...) took my rod and EASILY made casts well into the backing. I doublt I'll ever need all that distance, or that I'll ever get that good, but it DID validate the rod design......

Anyway, the rod looks different, but it works good.

Buddy

I'd be interested to know what that 'expert' thought about your 'funny looking' custom fly rod both before and after he cast it!

William,

First, I bought the blank for it from the fly shop that was holding the demo. This guy apparently sold these blanks to the shop. That's how I ended up showing it off. The owner had seen it, and wanted to get this fellows reaction to it.

When he first looked at it, he was pretty critical. He told me that the single foot ceramic guides would 'severly limit' the casting distance as they 'slowed down the line speed on the shoot'. (Didn't make any sense to me, but HE'S the expert). He quickly told me I had too many guides for 'optimum' performance as well.

He and his 'certified instructor/helper' were casting/demonstrating with a factory Loomis rod. He offered to 'test' mine for me and let me know how to improve with my 'next rod'. Now, both the rods were 9 wts. They didn't have another reel with a 9 wt. line on it, so they put an 8 on mine.

Both these guys easily outcast the factory rod with mine. After they were done, he had no 'suggestions' for any changes that were anything but cosmetic (he pointed out several times that 'traditional' fly rods don't have contrasting wraps or all the 'embellishments' that this one has), and asked me to explain to him how I had determined guide number and placement (I referred him to Tom Kirkman/Rodmaker/and this site).

Anyway, it was a bit of fun. I HATE to gloat, but it's the first rod I've done using my own 'judgement' for guide type/placement etc., (of course with appropriate recognition to all of YOU here for TEACHING me how). I was duly impressed with the results.

I'm also grateful to the 'expert' for showing me what the rod was capable of. I won't get there, but it's nice to know it's available with practice.

Thanks again, everyone here, for all the FANTASTIC information....

Buddy

Buddy,

Thanks for that interesting story. One thing we have to remember, and that a casting or fishing expert is no more an expert on rod building than a space shuttle astronaut is an expert on the constuction of the shuttle.

It has long been my experience that once a fellow learns to cast well and figures out how to catch fish fairly consistently, he automatically becomes an expert on rod building as well. Even though he has never built a rod and has little idea of why things are done as they are.

I publish a rod building magazine and am in contact with some pretty astute rod builders on a daily basis. I once gave a talk on rod building at FFF meeting and the guys there, none of whom had ever built a rod, were very quick to tell me I had no idea what I was doing. This is a pretty common scenario.

Your rod and its performance were obviously proof that you do know what you are doing. It had to be a good feeling.

........................