I just finished a spinning rod and have some line slap on the first guide .The method I used to determine the position of the guides was to lay it on a table with the reel to be used attached .I ran a line to the runners from the middle of the reel .Positioned the guides accordingly and taped them up. Did a static test and with a few tweaks it seemed correct. Epoxy the wraps .tried it out today and noticed more line slap than normal. What did I do wrong? Can I go down in reel size and get rid of the line slap? [Diawa 2500 to 1500] ?
Thanks
Ken Blevins

I don't worry about line slap on a slack line reeling in. You should not have it while casting nor while fighting fish. It should be ok. Sometimes it just happens that way. Bryan

FEATHER your cast with the tip of your index finger against the lip of the reel spool, or slightly in front of the spool lip, if the line slap before the butt guide seems to bother you. Also a lighter or softer fishing line will help. But "putting your finger" on the problem by lightly feathering the line during the cast will not only tame the casting tornado, it can improve your lure and casting control. For bass fishing, feathering can let you "drop" your lure into the water, and help it just "land" like a helicopter, rather than shoot thru the water surface like an arrow or missile, and then float back up - less natural. Just slam the brakes on, and pull down the lure. This can make a better presentation for certain top-water still-fishing baits, anyway. ... Take Care, Ken. (How's the gran'kids?) -Cliff Hall+++

Ken, Line slap can be caused by several things. 1st your stripper guide is set to close to the reelseat. or it is one or more sizes to large. When I set up a spinning rod and or a fly rod I test cast the rod before expoxy is applied. That way I can tweak the stripper guide to give the best casting performance. I might move the guide to help eliminate line slap or change the size of the guide.

When are you getting the slap? On the cast or on the retrieve?

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

Tom - Dave -Cliff - Bryan
I'm getting the line slap on my cast only..The stripper guide is 20" from the reel spool and the stripper guide size is 25mm . I rechecked it [ the rod ] this evening by static testing it again and everything still looks correct. the rod is a 7' AllStar
thanks again
Ken Blevins

Ken - Short of moving the butt guide, which may not be worth it, I would most definitely just leave good-enough alone. ... IMO, ... The old, "It ain't that broke, so quit fixing it !" type of advice. ... Just remember to check your casting BEFORE the position of the butt guide is settled in stone on your NEXT project. If you move your butt guide now, you may feel your static load distribution is in need of re-vamping, too. Chances are, in the long run, it won't make that much difference anyway. And things are probably not half as bad as they seem right now.

One thing that you can do to improve line flow that does not require doing anything to your fishing rod or line guides is: Use a softer fishing line. A softer fishing line will reduce line slap. Either a better quality nylon line, or a lighter pound test. Or any braid line, … but that may be the more expensive route. …

Again, some light line feathering from your forefinger can really tame the casting tornado and pull out the line slap.

If you are using nylon monofilament fishing line, the line may be dry and the cold temperatures making it stiffer. Sometimes if you wet the line on the spool with tepid tap water before casting, that can soften the nylon and improve line flow a lot. Do NOT use a hot stream of water - just room temperature. If it's too hot, a graphite spool once changed shape on me due to the line compression (line stretch). The center bore of the spool no longer FIT on the reel shaft correctly. And the bottom of the spool skirt rubbed inside the elbows of the rotor cup. I don't know what would happen with an aluminum spool - don't find out for us, either! (Maybe the line weakens when the metal spool EXPANDS faster than the fishing line relaxes.)

The colder weather in the middle of January may be causing your line to be stiffer than it is in the warmth of summer. I found my cheap white Ande line on a spinning reel in 30-60 degree Fahrenheit winter fishing (here in Northern Florida) to act more like single-strand stainless-steel wire than anything else. I switched to Berkley Big Game Nylon Monofilament in the Dark Green color from the 1/4 lb spools because of that some years ago. In my particular case, switching from Ande White to Berkley Green, using the same reel on the same rod, was a huge improvement. In 40 degree weather, you could HEAR the Ande White tinkle & crackle on its way thru the guides when cast, on those early mornings before work on Prairie Creek in February. … So, don’t be in a rush to re-do this rod. The cold weather alone could be the bulk of the problem. You may be wrongly blaming yourself for a rod design problem that simply does not exist.

Also, in the winter, if your fishing has put a twist in the line from casting, that can really make the line snarl and drive you crazy with line slap, too. -IMO-. If your line, when it hangs from the spool under only its own weight, stubbornly retains its slinky-coil helix, it may be time to switch brands, or a least try a fresh spool of line (if wetting it first doesn’t work).

So, feathering; a softer line; wetting the line; using a swivel, or just replacing the old line with fresh line (if a swivel kills your lure action) is a lot less risky than slicing off your line guides to re-do your test casting & loading, as if you were starting from scratch, IMO. Try doing your doctoring on your fishing line, so you don’t have to do major surgery on your fishing rod.
-Cliff Hall+++



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2006 07:42AM by Cliff Hall.

I don't know what guides you used, But there is a difference in ring height. Guides like the Fuji Concept, Titan, Forecast VS III, have ring heights that are higher then a lot of the pretty colored all purpose guides.
The concept type guides will bring the ring father away from the blank and let you use a smaller ring.
With this extra distance and setting the line or path as close to the middle of the ring as possible IMHO, I believe the line is father away from the blank and tends to stop this problem.
With the all purpose guides, in order to get the ring at a good line path ya have to use a larger guide ring, I believe this defeats the purpose of the concept IMHO

Bill I have already looked at this possibly being my problem. Here’s what I found .As the spool rotates [top -0 bottom 180degrees] With the spool at 90 deg the line contacts the guide above the 90 deg mark at 180 deg slightly above half but centered ,270 deg line touches guide above 270 mark and at 0 deg ,its centered but with a sharper angle. I’m beginning to think that the guide not large enough , with a guide size of 30 required. Also Cliff suggested changing line which I’m going to do first .Hope I haven’t confused you’al .Guys, thanks for taking the time to help.
Ken Blevins

What the heck, as long as your getting decent distance go fishin. Fix the next rod.

I started using braided line on my spin rods. Find it does not hold the pig tails, is more flexible and I get more distance. And you can use a thinner line because of how strong it is. You do have to use a mono leader with it so when you get hung up you don't have to cut all that line off, the mono will break instead.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2006 08:44AM by bill boettcher.

Bill
I think you're right ,time to move on .Fish today fix the next one later
Ken Blevins

I guess I don't have enough information and without being able to see what it's doing I can't offer much advice. What is the line slapping? The blank? It's going to hit the guide no matter what you do - that's the job of the butt guide, to gather in those coils and straighten them out. A #30 will only allow the line to come off the reel spool in larger coils and increase the slap.

What size line are you using?

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

Bill - I'm confused. I was under the impression that the Fuji Concept guide rings were actually "closer" to the blank, not further away - supposedly to reduce side torque. At least that's what I read from my AnglersResource catalog.

When you get to the tip of a rod you will usually use a fly guide, which is low to the blank to prevent blank twist. More of a concern on conventional cast rods with the guides on top. The higher the tip guide the more the line will tend to go to the side of it and try to pull the guide over and down Thus the Bumper System.
There single foot spin guides Concepts are a little higher then the rest. And work well to get a good height for line path from the spool to the chock guide. On spin rods !
There is the " M " guides that are very high, but I don't like to use them for I feel most will when they catch a fish, get excited and thow the rod down and probably hit this high a guide or catch it on some thing, and after time pop a ring or break it.

?

i got to play with this a little too on my first spinning rod which was my personal testing rod.i built a surf rod with basic surf guides. i used the table edge reel shaft guide location method.the only problem was when i went to buy my spinning reel instead of buying one like the one i used to build the rod.they had a sale on a pen so i bought it.the 706z.the spool was so much larger and the line slaped bad.so i removed a few guides and tried it with a much larger and taller butt guide at a few inches closer.still have line slap.so bad after half a million casts with my popper it wore a nice tornado shaped grove in the blank and guide wrap finish.kind of neat to learn the hard way.as i learned how the tornado works. i didn't care to much because the stripers were near i wanted to fish and it was a learening rod. i think i have a very clear idea how to fix the problem though.

Tim,

The Fuji Concept as well as the Titans are taller than most guide with the exception of the fly type (Fuji BLAG) which sit close to the blank. Most use the higher guides for the first 2 or 3 and then go to the low ones from there out.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

My 25MM 1st guide is 23 1/4" from the reel face on a 7' spinning rod. I am not sure if this is the best distance but it seems to work well for me using 8lb mono.

Tim,
The Concept casting and fly guides are shorter and closer to the blank for the reasons you mentioned. The spinning guides are taller than the standard Fuji, Am Tack, Pac Bay, Forecast guides but lower than the "M" style match guides. The Am Tack Titan guides are taller than the standard guides, but not as tall as the concept guides. Lowest to highest in the same ring size would be:
Fly, standard & concept double foot, standard spinning and high doublefoot, Titan singlefoot, concept spinning, and finally "M" style guide. The ceramic fly singlefoot and the concept double foot may be the same height in the same ring size.

Thinking about Tom's post that does make sense. The line comes of the spool and turns into the first guide. It runs around the ring, and if the ring is smaller, the pig tails will be smaller, and possible stop the line from hitting the blank. A larger ring will make the circumference of the pig tails larger hitting the blank, so a smaller ring will tighten the circumference getting it away from the blank