I am building 4&5 weight fly rods not sure if I should use the old snake guides or the new type low profile ring type guides. Looking for avid fly fishermans opinion.

Dale , that's a tough question to answer with out knowing what type of fishing you'll be doing with the rod . If you will be making long casts and doing a lot of stripping like when streamer fishing , incert guides will be the choice that I would make. Close in work on smaller streams you can get away with wire guides , but I only use single foot wire , Recoils mostly . Think about weight and price as the titanium framed strippers and running guides can get pricey . The advantages of incerts far out weigh the negatives, take into concideration how much fishing you'll be doing , as line wear is greatly reduced with incerts, one wrap per guide as compared to 2 with conventional snakes saves weight ( and a few wraps ) .
There are a ton of things to think about when deciding which to use . Hope this sheds a little light .........
Have Fun , John

Got Fish ?

I would tend to go with single foot wire guides on the 4WT less thread less weight, and ceramics on the 5. If the 5 wt is a fast action blank, they tend to be able to hold the ceramics better.
Then you also have Titanium, very light.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2005 09:57PM by bill boettcher.

I use ceramics on all my fly rods and have for many years, regardless of line size. I feel the total package of benefits they offer is well worth the money. Hopefully you'll get additional input from other fly rod builders. There's a lot of opinions on this subject, you may wish to do a search on the archives to turn up some other thoughts.

...........

Dale,

I mostly use singel leg ceramics by Fuji. If you can run to the T-sg which is their Titanium framed model so much the better as it weighs only 40% compared to stainless steel frames. Snakes to me are old hat. I could never get my head around a guide that uses the rod shaft to form the closure. They also tend to have poorly formed feet and sometimes come pre-ground? butchered. I have even seen them arrive with the plating flaking off. It never ceases to amaze me that the premium priced rod companies in the US still build their rods with twisted bits of wire.

Regards

Mike

I'm sold on single foot ceramic guides regardless of rod size (weight). I would be disappointed to have to go back to wire guides on any rod.
This is my subjective opinion but it is based on 60 years of fishing experience covering a wide range of rod
configurations.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Yea but you put ceramics on a 3WT moderate 9 ft fly rod, unless they are titanium, you got a wimpy bouncy tip A fast action blank will hold them better.

To each his own.

I would never go back to standard snake guides, they're just far too much work and offer no additional performance for the extra work. On nearly every fly rod, and that's all I build, I use single foot ceramic insert spinning guides and that includes 8 and 9 weight rods. I don't even use double footed guides for the stripper.

Why wrap a guide twice when you can wrap only once. And get better performance. I do see a lot of factory and custom makers using double foot snakes. maybe it's the looks ???

As I am trying to make a decision also on guides to use for a 9 ft 4 wt, can anyone offer a mid priced suggestion for the single foot guides? What brand makes the most sense here? Are the ceramic insert guides really overkill on a 4 weight flyrod? A 4wt for trout fishing the tailwaters for trout.

Thanks.

Tim Kelly