Have been starting my guide placements and sizes according to the charts that are advailable on the net and other places. But, I believe Ive been wrong .For instance,it occured to me just because you are building a 9ft fly rod, why do you have to use size 7 running guides ?It depends more on the size of the line you are using than in the length of the rod.If you were making a 9ft rod with a 2 wt. line is a size 7 guide necessary,I dont think so.Has anyone developed a system that concentrates more on line size in regard to ring size ? In an attempt to get some kind of feel for the subject Im taking the smallest guide that Im going to use on that specific rod I then double the line making it twice the thickness,thinking this would be the biggest knot I would tie.If the line is half the height of the ring I feel it would be suitable. Why half? I believe half would be for line thickness and knot size, the other half for casting and line correction. What do you think??

Years ago I noticed that the Sage rods had much smaller guides on them than those on say a St Croix rod. I believed than and still do that this has much to do with the feel/performance of a Sage rod. If you look at the guide spacing/size charts on the Sage site, you'll see a major difference in the guide sizes on an XP vs a St Croix SCV if they use their own recommendations.

Smaller guides equal greater rod efficiency (did you read Emory Harry's article in the latest RodMaker?). But, you could possibly go too small, so be careful there. Overall, however, even the smaller #6 guides will pass very large lines. The only thing you have to watch for is knots and loops, etc.

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Yes I did read the article. But my intension was to bring out the idea that the ratio between line size and guide size is important .As you and many have said in the past the smaller the guides the more efficent the rod. I was hoping thru this message, I and other beginners could learn from the expertise of others. There got to be a starting point.