I recently got a rod with Fuji oval SiC guides. What is the purpose of this configuration, and are they any good? I notice that Bingham has a closeout sale on them.

I have seen these recently on a 12lb boat rod. It was a Bicayne rod with a Shikari blank. If you know Biscayne Rods they build some of the best rods in the country. Kenny Carman and his family are highly respected for being innovators in the industry. I think these are more for boat rods than for casting, but they seemed like a nice new twist to regular round guides.

When Fuji was facing stiff competition form Daiwa's interline boat rod (I mean the japanese $300- $700 ones), especially on the sea bream boat rod, something has to be done or Fuji will
lose its edge. As all stiff competition results, we got our new generation of boat rod guides.

Most people abandon their old NSG guided rod and go with interline. Reason are quite simple the second you know how a sea bream boat rod
works. Then what are the short comings with guides like NSG, LSG, and LVSG on a sea bream boat rod? The sea bream rod is a very soft tipped rod
that most people use on a boat. The rod is usually 7 to 9 feet long. The effective length of the rod when loaded will be easily cut down by 2 to 3 ft. You
may ask what that mean. Imagine that the rod bend into a "U" with the first 3 ft of the rod the tip is pointing down and the blank is pointing up. When a
blank is under this condition you need a lot of guides to lift the line off the blank; thus a lot of NSG are used at the top part. NSG is not bad but when
the load is off the line usually will wrap the blank a few time and this is when all thing went wrong. NSG will allow line to wrap and you need to turn the
rod a few time just to get the line off the blank. Since there so many guide, one may need to turn quite a few time. If you are on a boat sitting down on a
rough see with a 9 ft soft tip rod, it is not easy!! If you are just baiting (sea bream use what Florida call chicken rid, and can be up to 10 hook in one rid),
it is not that bad, but when a few bream dash upwards when hooked and now the line slag and the line wrap the blank, you got a BIG PROBLEM.
Interline eliminate all of the above said problem and thus now hold a pretty large market in the boat rod business.

Then how is Fuji's counter act holds up. One look at the guide; one may not understand why the guide is an elongated circle. It is not an oval, if I may
add. The exact shape is an rectangle inserted between two half circle, just like the sport stadium run way. The real reason for this shape is to
compensate the old short fall of the round guide. When the rod is bend, with the guide also bend with the rod, if a round guide is used, the effective
through hole is now a cat eye shape. Take a guide in you hand and roll it forward or backward and you will see what I mean. Now with a elongated
circle, when the guide bend, the elongated part is shrinking and in worst case seigniorial, you got a circle!!! Then, there is the forward slant, why is this
angle needed? As I have mentioned above, the rod is in a U now, imagine if you pull on the tip the line which use to wrap the NSG is now in the slant
slope of the guide, it pull right off!! And the FST, LVST guide tip which can easily wrap the guide will have a hard time wrapping due to the high bridged
long rail of the NST. Conclusion, fuji come out with a winner. Actually it is so well deign now even the high end macho Iso rod (the rock bream rod)
now uses this guide.

So how can we benefit from this style of guide. My answer is that if you like to bend your rod into a U all the time with which you have line wrap problem
all the time, your prayer is answered twice (interline, DB series guide) with both will do the trick. Does DB series do fine on a bait casting rod? It will
work but it is not needed as you just added unnecessary weight and cost. The LNSG, LSG , UNSG and FST will do fine in a bait casting rod due to its
rather stiff tip, not to mention you seldom see a 9 ft baitcasting rod for bass with a very soft tip. How about down rigger rod for salmon? It is perfect!! The moment one understand the benefit and downside of each guide style we can built better designed rod.

Good fishing (catching) <*)))))))><{

Dorge has again gone technical and as usual he's quit e close to the mark. Conoflex is putting the guides in question on at least some of their boat rods that are "speciality" rods. You can go to their site at Conoflex.uk.com. for some pictures or at Hopkins and Holloway,sorry don't have their address. Hope this helps with out a 3 page dissertation. Neil