A few months ago, I built my first fly rod, a 9', 10/11 wt for use primarily in targeting striped bass in surf and estuary (saltwater) situations. Being a relative newbie to rodbuilding, and a complete newbie to both fly fishing and fly rod building, I tried to get decent equipment that was relatively inexpensive; if I was going to screw up my first fly rod, I didn't want to do it with a $400 Sage blank.

As part of my save-money strategy, I used two Aluminum oxide stripping guides, and then ran snake guides the rest of the way up the rod. For the tip-top I used a Pacific bay wire-loop fly top.

When I finally finished putting the rod together, I was very pleased: I wasn't sure how it was going to fish, but it looked great.

I'm new to fly fishing, so I took Lefty Kreh's advice (practice casting in your backyard for 15-20 minutes in a day, and after a month you'll be ready to go), and I've been dutifully casting away for the past few days.

In practicing, I've become very disappointed with the performance of the snake guides. I realize that I'm probably making mistakes while casting, but even taking that into account, I've frankly been appalled at how much contact the line (weight-forward, 10-wt moderate sinking) is making with the blank, especially between the tip-most guide and the tip-top.

For the time being, I'm only going to replace the tip-top with something that will keep the line farther away from the blank. I'll probably end up replacing all the snake guides, but I want to get more familiar with fly fishing in general
and with this rod in particular before I make any changes.

My question, then, is how people on this board, all of whom have way more experience than me, feel about snake guides. Are they obsolete? Does anyone like them? I'm going to be building another fly rod soon (a virtual duplicate of the one I already have), and I'm leaning toward passing on snake guides entirely, and using all ceramic guides.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated. Thanks.

sounds like EITHER the guides are not correctly placed (run a line on them then pull it to a bend see if the line runs nicely along the guides ) OR a casting fault if its a casting fault go back to basics Slow right down and pull the rod to your nose rather than over the shoulder see if that makes any odds it could be that the tip is the wrong size or the guides are the wrong size but i cant honestly see that

I would agree that here is a problem with the guide spacing, put the reel on the rod with the line you plan to use and do a Static Guide test as per the library above, [www.rodbuilding.org], and adjust the guides as required and do a few test casts and see if it iimproves. If the spacing you used is way off changing the guides from snakes, which have been around for a long time, to another type will not make much of a difference,

Thanks the responses. I did do a static test, and did do some test casting, before I wrapped the guides and finished them. They might not be located where someone who's built 1,000 fly rods might put them, but I am convinced that the guides are in acceptable locations. I've gone through the same procedures with both spinning and casting blanks, with very good results, and I don't see why a fly rod should be any different.

One problem may be the tip top; the loop on it is almost at a 45 degree angle to the blank, and as a result the line passes very close to the blank when entering it. I'm going to replace the top, and maybe that will do it. But I'm still interested in what people think of snake guides.

Are you saying the tip-top does not line up with the other guides? If that is the case that could be the problem??

I have switched to using only single foot ceramic guides on all the fly rods (graphite) that I buld except for bamboo rods and plan on putting single foot ceramics on a few bamboo I am rebuilding in the near future,

No, the guides and the tip-top are in perfect alignment -- I made sure of that before I finished them.

What might be the problem is the angle of the loop on the tip top. If you lay the rod flat on a table, with the guides and top pointing up, on most rods the tip-top's loop would NOT be pointing straight up (perpendicular), but would be pretty close to that position -- maybe only 10 or 15 degrees off perpendicular. On my top, the loop is angled more like 45 degrees, or halfway between perpendicular (pointing up) and flat (parallel with the blank). I bent the loop to bring it closer to perpendicular, but it still doesn't look right, and the line is way too close to the blank. I'm sorry, I wish I could post a picture of it.

If you're concerned about the tip angle, bend it. You can gently bend guides...they don't mind. Put a sharper bend in it and see if that makes a difference.

Jay

I've only built about 6 fly rods myself, but I don't like snakes at all. Snakes essentially use the lower portion of the blank as the top of the guide...makes for lots of drag. I (and many others) use single foot ceramics and are much happier...especially guides with a bit of an arm to keep the line off the blank.

Chris,

Your expectations may be the problem. Flycasting and Flyfishing are very different than spin fishing or casting.

Almost always with a spinning or casting line you have a much finer material line being kept taught by the weight of the lure or bait you are casting. This pretty much keeps the line running through the guides without touching the blank and when it does touch it is much less evident.

Picture a flag pole with a fine monofilament line holding on the flag on a windy day.....compared to a heavy rope. The fine mono would be stretched tight by the weight of the flag and carries very little mass...the heavier rope is going to "slap" the pole more because it has more mass. Like your very heavy 10 wt fly line.

The question is how much does this affect your cast vs other types of guides?Hard to say

I prefer single foots myself..but more because you put alot less epoxy and thread on the blank with only 1 wrap per guide. Snakes have been used forever though and seem to do the trick.

I would suggest you go fish the rod....In your backyard it is much easier to pay too much attention to small details. Fishing the rod may divert your focus long enough for you to realize that it does the job well enough...

Also it might be to your advantage to build and learn on a lighter rod...a 5 wt for example. A ten weight can be hard to cast all day even for an efficient caster.

After you learn how to cast -- take those guides off and , well it's for salt, put a set of Titans on. Ring guides will give you better performance !! A Sage with those guides -- shame on you !
That is a little stout to learn on. A nice Rainshadow 4-5 WT maybe an 8 footer will be easier to work. Maybe a mod-fast.

Of course the line is touching the blank - the snakes are open guides. Nothing to stop the line from touching on the back cast. Even single foot wire guides are a circle to help keep the line off the blank
Ceramics are the way to go IMHO !

One way to get the hang of it is to only let several feet on line out maybe 5-6. Cast that for a while, and slowly let more out. Try to ' feel the line pull on the blank on the back cast may take some line till it does.

If you can get a 11 or even a 12 line. Got a friend that fly fishes. Borrow one. The heaver line will make the rod load and you could feel it more.

15-20 minutes ?? Go out for 2-3 hours. Practice - practice - practice

Thanks for the responses, guys. I think that I am going to put a new tip-top on -- I don't like the one that's on there now -- and then go out and have fun until I have enough experience to decide what I want to do. I look back on my early non-fly-fishing experiences, when I thought I knew what I was doing (and what I wanted), and I shudder, realizing how misguided I was. Experience indeed trumps just about everything.

By the way, I understand the validity of learning to cast on a lighter outfit. But I fish only saltwater, and almost exclusively in the Jersey surf. I could have built a 5-wt rod, and matched it with a 5-wt reel, and had a pleasure learning on it -- and then never used it again. I'm targeting stripers (and the bluefish that come with them), and I wanted to build a rod that I would use for years. If it's more difficult to learn on it, so be it. When I catch that 30 or 40 on the fly (which I have done with non-fly tackle), I will not be a victim of an underweight outfit.

But thanks -- my expectations are most likely the problem. It's spring now, and I'll get out there and probably never again notice the things I saw in my backyard. It's been a long winter, no?

P.S. Bill -- this is NOT a Sage blank. It was a disconued Cascade blank that I got from one of the advertisers here.

What I have never understood about modern fly rod building is why fly rod builders & fly rod customers remain so resistant to embrace the advances of newer rod components and the benefits they bring. (“Tradition? … Tradition!” from “Fiddler on the Roof”.)

To keep my comments germane to Chris Garrity’s Post, ceramic ring guides can be sufficiently lite to substitute for snake guides. But snake guides remain popular.

And higher-frame guides like a V-frame would do a better job of keep the fly line from rubbing the rod blank than a Fly-frame ring guide. And a Y-frame guide would do an even better job of keeping the fly rod away from the rod blank. But fly-frames guides are used much more than V-frames on fly rods, and Y-frames hardly seem to get any nods.

The friction between a fly line and a rod blank is much greater than the friction between a filament line and a rod blank. As very well described by Joe Brenners rope on the flag-pole analogy. And yet we strive to keep the line off the rod blank in a Spinning or Casting rod. … But not in a FLY rod, … Why? … We still act as if that is uncorrectable.

I do understand that a higher frame ring guide offers more of a lever arm for a torque force. And I do understand that most Y-frame guides would weigh more than a similar size snake guide.

But on a 9-foot, 10-11 Weight FLY Rod, I would imagine that the improved line handling (less friction, greater casting distance, less noise, better fish handling) would be worth the extra guide weight & expense. And that weight would be well-tolerated by the rod & the angler.

PLUS the FRICTION of a CERAMIC ring guide would be a good bit less than any chrome-plated snake or chrome-plated ring guide. With the price of high-quality fly-line, I would think that the extra cost of ceramic ring guides (compared to snake guides) would easily be recouped by the increased useful life of the fly-line.

Plus in a heavy-weight saltwater fly rod, any target species will RUN and burn the line as much as anything. Why not use the lowest-friction guide you can afford?

That would be a CERAMIC Ring Guide, in as lite and as high a frame as needed to keep the line running freely & off the blank as much as possible for a fly rod.

Is there some reason for not using a higher-frame guide in medium to heavy weight fly rods? … –Cliff Hall+++, Gainesville, FL-USA.

I'm glad Bill and Cliff are in the same camp as I am reguarding ceramic , and Higher framed stripping guides .............
IMO snake guides belong on cane rods only ... and for looks at that . They have no place in modern flyfishing . With all of the state of the art components sporting the highest quality materials available to put on a graphite rod blank today , the snakes should be left back in time with gut lines .
IMO a titanium wire SINGLE foot guide are great for rods under 4wt , and even some of my 3's have ceramics .......... titanium framed for lighter weight .
Choose for yourself , but you are doing yourself and the blank your building a dis-service using anything but ceramics........the best you can spring for . Have a ton of fun , John

Got Fish ?

The strange angle of your tip-top is typical of the wire guides. I just replaced a wire tip-top tonight, and shuddered at the strange angle. I only used the wire top because it matched all the wire guides on the rod, and the owner wanted it that way. But, you're absolutely right--that strange angle cannot be helpful.

Sounds like you've kinda' solved your own problem. You've paid close attention, built the rod the best you knew how, and now you've gained some valuable insights from the experience. There's not a thing wrong with snakes; they'll work fine. However, in the future, you might consider using a full set of ceramics. From your spinning rod experience, I'm sure you know the high quality of even a basic ceramic guide.

For what it's worth, on all my personal rods (fly, casting and spinning), I go with Fuji Titanium/SIC ceramic guides. Yes, they are more expensive than most every other guide available. However, I would rather wait a little longer and save up the money. They are so incredibly light, and they allow the blank to be its absolute best.

As far as guides for fly rods, I converted to all ceramic guides awhile back. There's just no down-side, especially if you go with an ultra-slick guide ring like an SIC. They perform flawlessly. Give it a shot on your next fly rod. In the mean time, go fish that 10 wt.--it'll be great!

I am very interested in this topic because i am trying to build my own fly rod. I obviously want my rod (a 9' 10Wt) to work up to its full potential. I am just curious about what size ceramic guides i should use in place of the snake guides. if someone could give some insight as to the size of these guides used to replace snake guides it would be appreciated. thanks for the help.

This is a little off topic but anyway, If you are new to fly fishing and you have a 10/11 weight rod, you'd be better off with a 11 weight WF line. IMHO.

Cliff,

Remember it wasn't that long ago all flyrods were all made of wood or the lovely reed(Bamboo).Their has been more change in rod design in the last 50 years than the previous 1000 years IMO.

This is just another advantage to being a rod builder.

Chris,

I understand your need for a heavy rod to fish the salt. It puts you at a disadvantage as a new caster....kinda like learning to drive in a dump truck! The heavy wt line ampilfies everything a bit.

I am not a FFF certified casting instructor. I catch more than my share of fish though. I consider myself a decent caster, but that isn't my priority when I'm fishing.For me it is about being a good enough caster to be able to present my fly precisely in order to catch fish & that is it! After a while the rod & line will become an extention of you and you will just cast and the fly will go where you want it. I guess what I'm trying to say is...don't get too stressed about the snakes....many very good flyfishers before you used/and still use them.

On subsequent rods you will have more experience and will start to form preferences for the components that suit you.

Their are many rod builders on this site who will have many different preferences. You truly won't know what yours are until you have tried different things.

I fished my first rod (which has snakes) last week and though I prefer single foots now ....it still is a very nice rod. I will always have a sweet spot for it. It is even a bit ugly...my skills as a rod builder have improved much since then.

Almost all the commercial flyrods including the higher end ones all have snakes on them. Sage,Winston,T & T,Scott.... can't think of any that do not. If the friction caused by the line created as much drag as people are making out because of the performance solely of snake guides wouldn't manufacturers be changing?

"If the friction caused by the line created as much drag as people are making out because of the performance solely of snake guides wouldn't manufacturers be changing?"

No, they wouldn't. A single foot ceramic guide like the Fuji Titanium SIC might be $5.00 wholesale....for a single guide! Even a step down with a Forecast Zirconia, you'll be looking at $1.00 per guide. Wire snake guides cost big rod manufacturers $0.10 at MOST...so a TEN TO FIFTY FOLD increase in their cost per guide...multiply that by 10 guides per rod...and at several hundred rods per day...

The performance difference is noticeable, but not absolutely revolutionary. You're talking about a 5-10% gain in distance at best. Ceramics also pay out slack line better and provide more 'feel' when fighing fish, in my experience. I fish enough (and a lot of my customers do, too) to feel and appreciate the difference...but someone who fishes once a week or less might not.

To the general public, snakes have *always* been on fly rods, and they work...why try anything new? What manufacturer is going to take that sort of financial risk for a performance benefit that's not going to be seen by all fisherfolk? Not to mention the stigma that ceramics are 'spinning rod guides' and 'look funny'.

In a one-to-one conversation and side-by-side casting, a good custom builder should be able to demonstrate to a knowledgable fisherperson the difference between the two. However, a major manufacturer would not have that advantage. Heck, probably 90% of the fly shop dealers of Sage, Winston, T&T, Scott, etc. (and any you didn't mention) don't know the advantages of ceramics right now. It'd be a pretty massive PR & education campaign...and for what benefit for the manufacturer? So they can pay more to manufacture their rods?

:)




Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]

Chris,

Unless you mounted desperataly small snakes and way to few then your casting woes are not down to snake guides but you I am afraid. Now I louth snakes with a vengence but inspite of the fact that the rod shaft closes one side of these twisted bits of wire ironically snake guides feel good when casting. Some ceramics have a dry grating feel to them. Too small a ceramic guide can be sheer pergatory.

It's also been said up in the posts above that a 10/11 is a big beast to learn on even if you are a big man it's a lot of rod to wave around, and I agree.


Even quite bad rods will let you cast reasonably well if you can cast. My best offer of help is to get proffessional casting lessons before you groove in fauilts aquired by book and video learning. Get that problem and you will be dropping huge amounts of change for the rst of your life trying to rid yourself of the faults. I speaks from experince.

Mike O.

Thanks for the opinions, guys. I have a perfect solution: A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a new 10-wt blank, and am going to be building it over the next month or two. For the new rod, I will use only ceramic guides (though I think I'll be using something cheaper than titanium/SIC), and when I'm finished I'll compare the performance of the snake-guide rod to the ceramic rod. My guess is that I'm going to prefer the ceramics, but you never know.

And it probably is true that any problems I'm having are not because of the instrument, but who's wielding it (i.e. me). But that's OK -- it's always fun learning a new fishing technique, and it's even fun making mistakes and correcting them. This is not heart surgery; if you screw something up, nobody's going to get hurt (probably).

Speaking of casting, to be perfectly honest, I really don't care if I do things the "wrong" way, just that I catch fish. I know that there is a breed of fly fisherman who consider casting an art form, and a worthy endeavor in its own right. I don't begrudge these people -- hey, it's a free country -- but I don't feel that way at all. For me, fly fishing should be about catching fish, and the @#$%& with aesthetics. I won't be needing to cast farther than 40 or 50 feet, so as long as I can get it out there -- and I've been able to do that so far -- I don't really care about "form" or "grace." This isn't ballet, after all.

By the way, the comments on guides was exactly what I was hoping to hear. One of the reasons that I like building rods is getting into the technical stuff, the philosophical underpinnings of the craft, if you will. I've found that doing so has given me a much better understanding of the equipment we all use to fish, and has certainly made me a better fisherman as well.

And the community's generosity never ceases to amaze me. When I read the posts on this board, I sometimes feel bad because I lack the experience to be much help to anyone. But the time that custom rodmakers take to help their rodmaking brethren -- well, just say that it makes me glad to be part of this great craft, even in my puny and irrelevant way.