I am building a casting rod based on an All Star GC/GS841 moderate action/ex. light power 7' blank to toss light stickbaits, etc. I was wondering if anyone has done this and what guides, spacings were used. Would spiral wrapping the guides be useful for a rod like this? I was thinking size 6 single foot fly guides would work well for all but the butt guide and the second guide.

Thanks in advance!

Ryan

The bumper spiral guide placement detailed in the issue of Rodmaker out right now would be ideal for your rod. And any spiral wrap system would be better than having the guides on top as standard. Once you build and try a few you will know what I mean.

There is a standard guide spacing method for static placement in the library's selection of articles here.

Richard is on the money. Any spiral wrap is going to work better than any guides on top system for your rod. One easy way is to just put a guide at 0, one at 60, one at 120 and one at 180 degrees all equally spaced at about 4 inches apart each. Then put the rest at 180.

The Bumper Spiral is even better. You could get the magazine if you want the illustrations and photos but it's not hard to do. You'll have to learn to do the standard static placement, then you just flip all the guides upside down except the first one. Then you go back and insert a very small casting style guide exactly halfway between the first two and on the 90 degree position. If you do it right, the line will pass right though it and only touch it at the very bottom to keep the line off the blank. It's very clean and works and casts very well. Because the line doesn't have to spiral around the blank and through several guides, it seems to cast every bit as well as any guides on top rod.