It's mentioned so matter of factly, make some casting tests to locate the ideal location for guides before wrapping. What exactly do you do to tweak your guide locations once you have a starting point? Is it the first guide or two nearest the reel that require the most tweaking? Do the guides nearest the tip have to do more with static loading than casting performance? How do you know when it's right, or getting closer? Is it the sound the line makes or lack of it during the cast? How do you go about the process, and when do you know it's right?

Rich,
Check out the Library and read an article called "Static Guide Placement" by Tom Kirkman (second article from the bottom). It should answer all your questions, if not come back.
Hope this helps,
Noel

The first or butt guide, is the one you're most concerned with on initial casts. This is particularly true with a spinning reel. Once you've gotten that one located in the position that seems to work the best, you can adjust the sizes of other guides and see what happens there. I often tell people to use the smallest and lightest guides that will still get the job done. So, if I have say, #8 running guides and it works pretty well, I'll drop to #7's and then #6's just to see if there is any difference, or any increase in distance. If not, I'll consider whether or not I get just as much distance. If so, I stay with the smaller ones. If it turns out that my distance fell off, I'll move back up. You'll have to work out your own method for doing all this, but after a few it isn't very hard.

And I will mention that if you set up your spinning rods as outlined in the library article here, you can test cast all you like, but rarely will you find that you have to make an major adjustments to your guide set up.

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Keep in mind with teh smallest guides possible - if any knots will be passing through the guides. Especially braid to Mono knots, where depending on the knot you tie it may hang up in the guide if you go too small.