I'm in the process of placing guides on a Seeker CLB708 (I think, it's 7 feet anyway) light trolling rod. It's a spiral wrap, and after I had moved the guides around to minimize the degree of the turn the line makes through each guide throughout the blank, the guides are a little more bunched up around the part of the blank that bends the most, i.e. not the tip and not the butt, but about 2/3 of the way up the rod. So the distance between those guides may be 4 inches (guessing), while the distance say from the tip to the first guide is 6 inches. Regardless, it's NOT the standard setup where the distance between the third and fourth guide is more than the distance between the tip and first guide. And after the bend, down towards the butt, the guides space out again.

I'm very comfortable with the setup, and the way the line follows the rod through the guides with a minimum of change in direciton seems like a thing of beauty to me, but my question is has anyone else come up with this sort of configuration? Is there some super flaw that I am unaware of with this setup? Am I approaching it wrong? I think this rod will fish as good or better than the rest as the guides are spaced specifically for the rod's particular characteristics. Comments please!

I usually do my best to keep the ruler in the drawer when I'm static deflecting. I have a few rods which do not follow the standard guide placement, where each guide is spaced progressively further as you go down the rod. I try to let the bend in the rod & the resulting line path tell me where to place the guides on each blank.

i must confes though, it irks me if the guides are not progreesively further apart, and I have gone back and made adjustments so this is teh case, especially on rods I build for other people where I won't be there to explain "why" and they will get bombarded with Q's and doubts as to the rod's performance from people using Ugly Stick conventional rods with spinning rods turned upside down - moreso than they already recieve from having spiral wrapped rods, and teeny fly guides, and all that "paint" in front of the foregrip.

I honestly believe we really overdo it, most of what we do will not make enough of a noticeable difference to warrant our concerns. Do what you are comfortable with - that particular blank has a true XF action, where teh tip "flops", and teh rod almost shuts off 15" from the tip. On that particular blank, I would probably leave teh guides the way they are, knowing that it doesn't make a hill of beans difference since the rod isn't going to break regardless - the factory version probably uses 6 or 7 guides spaced preogressively.

double, sorry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2005 01:54PM by Billy Vivona.

You're probably just fine and if you like it, just go with it. But you may also want to try Bill Colby's Simple Spiral as written about in the last issue of Rodmaker. After trying it it's the only spiral system I'll use from now on. Easy to set up and it just, well, it just works!

Ken, he doesn't mention if he is spiral wrapping or not.

Indeed it is a spiral. I'm pretty happy with that part of it, it seems like I've established a good line from my reel to the first 180 degree eye. I have not received my magazine yet though, I'll be interested to see what it says.

The rod is for someone else, my boss' friend who is buying himself a brand new boat, and my charge was truly make it a rod that you could not buy off the shelf. I need to balance the fact that the guides aren't progressively spaced with the fact that it'll have my name on it and people coming and going from the boat that will be checking it out.


Billy, is that Seeker truly an extra fast action? You may be right as there is very little flex by the time you're 1/3 of the rod's length away from the tip, but the tip itself seems to be pretty limber.

On second thought - I may be thinking of the 709 - it's been a while with the Seekers. I know one of them bends like 15 inches, and completely shuts off.