I have yet to build my first rod and am in the "research" phase. My interest at this point lies in building a 3 weight fly rod, ultimately the Sage TXL, after building a "first rod" to practice on. I read about oversizing the guides, guides made of titanium, chrome, cermet, ceramic, silicon carbide, snake vs. ring, single foot vs. two foot, etc. etc. How does someone with my lack of experience make an intelligent choice among all the variables? I'm not interested in saving money, so that isn't a concern. I enjoy quality and performance more.

Is there some way for someone like myself to compare these variables in an efficient manner BEFORE making a purchase and realizing right away that I should have used "xxxx" instead?

Or, is it going to boil down to it not really going to make that much difference to begin with?

Try a search of this board. Just click on the Search up top in the red banner, and type in the rod you are looking for suggestions on. You will get a lot of info. Should help

Ralph,
It appears from your comments that your are familiar with the many options available to you. I was faced with this decision not too long ago, as I built several light weight fly rods during the last year. My decision was to use light wire snake guides on my three and four weight rods. I wanted to minimize weight and was hoping for long guide life when I chose Recoil snake guides. I believe that I am getting adequate casting performance with the snake guides, though casting distance may have been enhanced with some form of single foot, slick surface ring guide. Only time will tell whether the Recoil guides have the durability I hope for.

But casting distance wasn’t the performance factor I was after. Most of my fishing with three and four weight fly rods is done at forty feet and in. So the snake guides provide the light weight I want and I am able to hit my targets adequately.

I do use titanium, SIC ring, stripping guides and tip tops though.

Good Luck,
Jeff Shafer

Building a few test rods is a good approach. The TXL blank retails for over $250. Not a good price point for a practice rod. For about $30 you can get a lower cost blank of similar length and line rating, and build a rod with whichever guide size and type you want to try. In fact you can even get two of the same blanks and try different guides on each one. I have experience with the Tiger Eye blanks in the 6’ and 7’ range. They build into very nice rods. You will not be wasting your money.

The weight of the guides you choose will significantly impact the finished rod, especially on the tip section. I have not read it, but the recent issue of Rodmaker apparently has an excellent article by Emory Harry on this subject. Also, find and read Steve Kartalia’s post and following comments about restoring crispness to a tip heavy fly rod, posted June 30th. It is toward the bottom of page 4 right now.

On the light end try the REC Recoils. Either the RSF single-foot or RSN snakes, whichever style you prefer, with a Recoil tip. Because these guides are so light you can use size 1 for a 3 weight rod. For SIC single foot guides, the titanium-framed models such as the Fuji TLSG are the lightest. In either case I suggest a titanium framed SIC stripping guide, size 8 or 10.

The difference between the guide weights on rods built as above would be in the range of 10 grains, about half the difference between a 3 and a 4 weight line on the AFTMA scale, but they would “feel” very different. You are then in a better position to decide which guides to use on your TXL.