Re: line slap on retrieve
Posted by:
Cliff Hall
(---.dialup.ufl.edu)
Date: December 21, 2004 05:54PM
Rod-building wise: If the choker guide is at least 30MM and is of the high-frame style, like the Fuji Y-frame (BYAG,etc) and is half the spool diameter, it does seem unusual for the line to slap the blank. Moving it out to as much as 28" may work. Can you still try that, moving the choker forward? Don't wrap & epoxy yet. Keep testing, moving the choker about 2" at a time. Just wrap with masking tape or rubber bands.
Otherwise: The cold weather we all seem to be having right now makes ANY brand of monofilament a lot stiffer and "wire-y-er". It may be making this line slap tendency even worse. If you run tepid water over the line, it may absorb some water and improve the suppleness. A better brand of line may not have so much slap. And the judicious application of a light taming pressure from the tip of your casting hand's forefinger will help alot, and shouldn't reduce the casting distance much. You know, just in the path of the line, in front of the spool. It doesn't have to press against the spool. That will let the lure "pull" the line off the reel forward, rather than have it sproing off centrifugally, like you are saying. Also, if you laid the line on the spool by winding it yourself onto the reel, rather than have a spool machine do it at your tackle store, you may have introduced a horrendous amount of twist that is messing you up, that has nothing to do with your rod design, which sounds fine.
I hope that helps get your wheels of ingenuity going again, Steve. -Cliff Hall, Gainesville, FL-
