I have a Surf rod I use with a Spinning Reel. As is common with Surf Rods the First (Butt) Guide is on the Butt Section while all the other guides are on the Tip Section.

I was wondering if I could adapt it to serve as both a Spinning rod and a Bumper rod. If I add a Bumper Guide halfway between the Butt Guide and the Second Guide then it seems that by I rotating one section 180 degrees and stringing the line through the Bumper Guide I could use it with a Conventional Reel. By rotating it back and ignoring the Bumper Guide it would work with a Spinning Reel.

I am not csure if there wojuld be any adverse effect from placing the effective spine opposite itself on the two sections. Recent postings indicate that the issue of effective spine placement is not of critical importance. Almost all the action is in the Tip Section where the guides will always be on the bottom. Since the Butt Section of a surf rod is quite rigid I do not expect any noticeable change in rod performance.

The kepy issue seems to be the difference in line paths and the hjeight of the reels and the guides...particularly the Butt Guide. In order for this to work well I might have to find reels that are close in height and fine tune the guide sizes and placement. I would never want to build a rod that is mediocre at two tasks when it can be excellent at one. I wonder if anyone tried this.
Thanks for the chance to brainstorm.
Dave

Maybe if you ferral the handle(like the old wooden ones)you could wrap a guide on each side of the rod and then just twist the handle to align whatever reel you want to use.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

I think that would work well. I have a surf rod that i use as a dual purpose rod, works fine. I think i used a 30 stripper guide. I havn't spireled it though. just flip the whole thing around. baitcasters don't care as much as spinners do.

the only thing you might not like is having the bumper guide there, when you are using a spinner. but it probably won't hang the line. Do it, you can always just take the one (bumper) guide off and you havn't lost anything.

Trey at Hatteras Outfitters makes Dual Purpose surf rods. We test casted one at a NERBs event side by side with other set ups - with braid it doesnt much matter, use a 25 BMNAG as far out as you can for both set ups, and work down from there. It casted really well.