I have read and watched the thread below on the spiral wrap. More and more converts add their comments daily. I went over and read what the guys on the AllCoast board had to say after trying it on really big, tough fish with heavy duty equipment. Not a single bad report has come from anyone who has used it and only good things are said about it.

Is it possible that for all practical purposes the conventionl guides-on-top casting rod is really obsolete at this point?

About the only place that I can see that the conventional, guides on the top , is superior is when roller guides are used. In many cases a spiral wrap can replace the roller guides and work better because it will stabilize the rod eliminating the torque inherent when the guides are on the top of the rod. The spiral wrap eliminates the need to use very heavy guides with two or three layers of wraps to hold the guides on. Just make sure when you use the spiral wrap, place the guides where the line only touches the top or bottom of the guide, never the sides of the guide(90degrees) when in any fishing position. This will eliminate most of the trouble with guides being pulled off or twisted to the side.

Getting ready to build another set of anchor and fighting rods for pier king fishing. Solid glass anchor and fighting. Going to use NLG's on the anchor and CLRLG's on the fighting.

Hope you folks aren't leading me astray!

It seems like I keep moving the scale on the rods I dare to spiral wrap. I started with some light casting rods for bass. Then tried it on some live bait rods for stripers. Then I took a chance on some live bait rods for for kings. All worked better than any rod or rods I had ever used.

I don't think there is any question left about how well they work and their effect on rod stability. The only question is what type of spiral wrap works best for each situation and can the rod builder use the correct method. If you use a spiral wrap and it doesn't work well it is probably the fault of the builder in how he chose to make the spiral wrap.

In my quest for info on the wrap, I contacted literally hundreds of people. Some didn't know; some didn't know, but knew 'someone' who might know and others provided some interesting insights, both pro and con. I first tried the Rich Forhan/Trevan Tilbury method, then An 'improved Trevan's method'. I met one heckuva nice bunch of guys who were willing to share. I would get something new and go wrap it, try it, fish with it and file it. I learned a lot about the spiral wrap. I 'met' Don Morton on the 'net, Ralph O'Quinn, Tom Kirkman and Joy Dunlap, who coined the name 'Roberts Wrap' that he learned from Chuck Roberts. I also met a friend from NC, now from VA, Rob Savage who turned me on to the Rod Guild Archives. I read Ralph O'Quinn and suddenly everything made sense. I want to thank everyone who put up with me and my incessant questions. I think that I can wrap a rod with the wrap now. Just as soon as I say that, Don Morton will come up with something else which he knows that I'll try.

Can you wrap the wrap wrongly? IMHO, no; as long as the line travels in an almost straight line to the bottom guides, it will work. I have wrapped the 'turn' with one guide, two guides, three guides, four guides and five guides. All will work.

Will it cast better? Again, IMHO, if a rod is wrapped with the same number of guides and the same spacing, there will be no appreciable difference in the casting distances. When you wrap one according to the 'concept' with more and smaller guides, the casting quality improves. It has to.

Is the wrap the answer to all situations? I heard both pros and cons and the most frequent was that you could do some things better with a spinning rod. I have to agree. Case in point: I wrapped a 9 foot spinning rod from a flyrod blank and a 9 foot casting rod with the wrap. I found the spinning rod to better suit my use, which was casting tiny lures in the surf. The conventional rod worked better for slightly larger lures. A spiral wrapped rod is super for freshwater flipping when you fish heavy cover. Again, IMHO.

My first, wrapped a la Trevan/Rich Forhan, is a 7 1/2 footer wrapped single wrap with doublefooted guides all the way and is used for sheepshead. It has been operational for two years and still works well.

I have wrapped a 7 foot popping rod which uses double footed guides a la R. O'Quinn to make the turn then single wrapped single foot guides out to the tip.It casts with just a whisper; you aren't aware of the line going out and it pulls real well.

I have a 9 1/2 foot 'meat pole' adjustable to 10 feet 2 inches, built during my research, that I use for Kingfish and other BIG! fish off the bridge. It has single wrapped double footed guides on it and shows no signs of failing. If I were in the rodmaking business, I would have to double and triple wrap in order to sell the rods.

My latest, and pick of the litter, is a 11 1/2 foot surf rod, wrapped with doublefoots to make the turn, then single footed guides on out. It has 13 guides on it, built according to Don Morton's method. I will have to test this one. If I can tear it up, I'll do it, but I don't think so.

Sorry about the length of the post, but I have had several people ask me why I didn't post my remarks that I made in emails to them. I like to talk about the wrap. This keyboard is one of those Ergosomethings and I can't get used to it. Excuse the typos. C2

Enjoyed your post which will encourage to wrap more spiral wrapped rods, I have six wrapped that way so far ranging from 8' 20-40# bait and jig rods wrapped with HNSG guides and one 6 1/2 ' 50# rod wrapped with LRSG guides, both have worked great this summer on Calif yellowtail and albacore, biggest fish to date with the wrap is a 57# bluefin tuna which when pulling drag, did not twist the rod at all-I'm convinced plus they are more fun to fish with cause I get many, many comments about my 2piece rod that has come loose, my guides are loose etc, etc, etc,

I think Jim's post is quite telling in terms of what the spiral wrap can be used for. For so many years many fishermen grudgingly admitted that the spiral wrap was at least as good, if not better than the guides-on-top style. But they also said you couldn't use the spiral wrap on rods meant for landing really big fish. The So Cal fellows are proving this is not true. I also believe that Florida rod builder John Stumpe, among others, has been using the spiral wrap on powerful saltwater rods for some time.

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I just built my first spiral wrapped trolling rod for big striper. If it fishes anything like it tests, I'm a believer. Why do some say it doesn't work well for bigger fish? Why don't we see more Roberts wraps on heavier offshore trolling rods not requiring roller guides? Seems to me, the bigger the gamefish, the more sense this wrap makes.

Most of the people who say it won't work haven't actually tried it. You just don't find many who have tried one saying they had any problem with it. Count me as one of the guilty ones ... I also said it wouldn't work well. Then I tried it and found out how well it really does work. As far as the guides coming loose from the sideways pull you might have ... it can't be any worse if even as bad as the torque on a guide that is on top of the rod with the line trying to take it to the bottom of the rod.

Jim,
I assume you are using on a stand up rod with a fast taper. I am going to try it on a cod rod with a moderate/slow action. Any suggestions or key points as far as guide placement ideas, or is it just try it till it works?

Thanks,

Bill

Jim,
I assume you are using on a stand up rod with a fast taper. I am going to try it on a cod rod with a moderate/slow action. Any suggestions or key points as far as guide placement ideas, or is it just try it till it works?

Thanks,

Bill

One thing I found. You can't place the butt-most guide directly aligned with the reel and have the line not hit the side of that guide. The rest are perfect. I guess that creates the dilemma of offsetting the first guide creating a misalignment with the reel. It doesn't effect the reel much to have it slightly offset, just makes the design look even more odd. I opted to go straight up on my first guide, but would like to hear what others do.

Sometimes, you have to live with the line hitting one side of the first guide. Place it so that the line will flow freely with it on both sides of the spool. If I'm wrapping for one reel, I will offset the first guide. If I'm wrapping a rod to be used with multiple reels, I place the first guide somewhere near zero(looking down the rod) I don't use a levelwind on my bigger rods and find that with an offset first guide, using a different reel than made for, the line will 'fight' me when I'm laying on line on the opposite side of the spool from the wrap. Don Morton expalins first guide placement better than I.

As far as being worried(concerned) about the guides slipping under the strain of a bigger fish, don't worry. My sheepshead rod has dragged many a big fish without a slip. It does use double footed, single wrapped guides.

I had some concern about using single footed guides from the flex point out, but was reassured by Don Morton not to worry. I wrapped my popping rod with singlefooted guides and have literally dragged fish with it without problems. I wrapped my new surf rod with singlefooted guides, all 10 of them. I have landed two pretty good sized redfish that didn't know what hit them. The rod operated as advertised. I did cheat and add a 5 turn security wrap just for me.

I hope that more people get involved in the wrap. I know that Don Morton is probably in his shop cooking bigger and better things for the wrap. C2

Bill:
Actually, the 8' rods I've wrapped are all of a moderate taper, the 6 1/2' rod is a little faster but still not what is considered fast taper by todays standards(the rods are all 20-30 years old ). So far I used O'Quinns method of guide placement as spelled out in the Rodmaker magazine article by Q'Quinn on his method of spiral wrapping. Have seen no reason to deviate from what he preaches-

Thanks for the info. I will post when I get it done and ley you know how I made out.

I build bass rods only so I can't comment on the big fish equipment. I opt for the Forhan method of guide placement because it is so close to what I had been experimenting with for years when Rich found me talking about my "no foregrip" on another message board. I had been placing the butt guide at top-dead-center (TDC) but still experienced line stacking on a couple of Pinnacle VST10 reels.

Rich's method of placing the butt guide with a 3 degree left offset (spiral to the right) fixed this problem for me. He also tells me that the side strain on the butt guide, when tested with a five pound weight and heavy flex load on the rod, is no more then 1 pound. Far less then the double foot butt guide is rated for. A fifteen pound bass should not increase the side strain much more then 3-4 times and this is still less then the guide rating.

Let's face some facts about spiral. IT IS BETTER. Another fact is when we consider the reels level wind as the first guide and call it point "A" and the tip top on bottom as point "B" there is no straight line from point A to B without going thru the blank. As the level wind of the reel moves, the angle in relationship to the butt guide changes as well. So angles and side contact of guides is going to be there. I have yet to see a guide failure from this side contact but as I stated my experience is with bass rods only.

I am glad to see so much response in the spiral wrap, after building it in Texas for 16 years our sales have more than tripled in sales from tackle stores picking them up to teaching more rod builders this very odd but productive wrap.

Joe,

For the non-believers out there, I would think that your use of the wrap for 16 years now would have turned up any problems with it. Your endorsement after all those years and so many rods speaks well for it.

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Thanks Tom,but it was not easy in changing fisherman to an odd but very effiencent type of wrap. Doing shows in the past I was asked so many , many times "How many beers did it take "? finally I just started replying I don't remember. But it is catching on, I have seen this from the pro circuit to many bass clubs throughout Texas and Louisiana, and getting bigger in Oklahoma. But the state of Arkansas has had it longer than I been making it. We may even see big name companys producing it in the future. I can't beleive China, Japan and etc haven't done it yet. One must really try it for themselves, if built right it is a "selling" product.

This is such an interesting thread, I figured to throw my 2 cents in.
The sprial wrap, being most effective in use, still has a job of convincing the normal alglers out there.

I just donated as a bass tournament sponsor a prize of special spiral wrapped casting rod based more on the O'Quinn modification which makes perfect sense to me. Put together this confirguration with titanium framed/SiC guides , a good smooth high speed reel and premium line makes as fine a bass casting rod as anything out there, never mind all the talk about stability and such. Before handing the rod over, we invited a local pro tournament winner to 'throw a few' out in the field. BANG! he was sold in a minute. Side casting, overhand or any which way, the rod simply performed.

Unless these types of rods are placed in the hands of 'those who know' the differences, the market goes lacking unless the local rodbuilder does the 'show'. They really do work and work well.
I use to like them only for med. heavy levelwind applications, but am now even going to lighter wt. blanks and more number, longer rods for the spiral guide placement. From deep lake trout trolling to skipping and casting lo profile hot shots, the spiral wrap will hold its own with the conventional guide placements. Stability, is the key word, but don't overlook overall casting performance within keeping of the blank lure/line wt. rating. I do find the right guide , line and reel choices critical to the overall matchup and balance. Sometimes takes tweeking beyond just the 'spiraling'.

I'm a fan, and will be building more of these as the request come in.
Thanks for all the input and observations.

Rich
www.rodreel.com
Solyrich Custom Rods