Building up a SCIII 7' MH casting blank for lake trout jigging. Lures run up to 2oz., fish average 5-6lb. with an occasional 10lb'r. My question is, am I playing with a possible future-guide breakdown, using single-foot alconite guides for the entire rod (including stripper & bumper) all Forhan-wrapped? Thanks for your help, appreciated!

Why not! As someone said here a while back, the line has no idea how many legs are holding the ring up there! I think I would forhan wrap them. I've started doing that to all my rods with SF guides. Only takes a few extra seconds and makes sure you can't pull the guides out on anything.

Thanks Ken. I really like the total single-foot look and performance on all my rods too! This is my first casting rod though. In this case with a bumper-style wrap, I was just wondering how any line torque from reeling in fish would affect the position of the stripper and first 180deg guide over time.

I would use double footed guides for the butt guide and second guide (first 180 guide). The rest would be fine as single footed guides.


.........

Thanks Tom, I'm starting to wake up and think a bit more logical now, better to be safe. On a rod this size, the extra weight of a couple of guide wraps won't hinder anything. Appreciate your help and opinion as always! Mike

And that tiny bit of extra weight is down low, not out on the tip where it would make any appreciable difference.

..............

Gotcha Tom, I guess here's a case where performance and matching the correct components to the type of rod/use outweigh aesthetics! Thanks again.

It won't look bad at all. Keep the same frame color and ring type and it'll look fine.

.........

Mike: I recently made one pretty much as Tom K suggests, and it looks and performs fine. FYI, this was a 6 1/2 foot MH bass rod: the butt and first 180-degree guides were double foot size 12 and 7, respectively. The bumper guide was a size 7 single foot fly guide (really hugs the blank) and the rest of the guides out to the tip were size 6 single foot fly guides. My only problem was deciding how many trim wraps and where to place them for the best look, haven't quite solved that yet. But it fishes great!