As a rule of thumb I've been placing my first guide around 4" from the tip. Recently I was at a show and noticed that all the St. Croix Muskie rods had their first guide about 2" from the tip (2-2 1/2). Any thoughts as to why and is this a good idea?

That makes no sense to me. Your 4" makes a lot more sense. That is adding weight at the worst possible place in terms of rod performance. It will not make that much difference on a heavy Muskie rod but on most rods that will be used to cast that is going to lower the rods casting distance, ease of casting and also lower the rods sensitivity.
If you deflect the rod does the rod bend in the first two inches? I have never seen one that does. If it does not bend in that first two inches then there is no stress or strain there and no need for a guide to distribute the stress. There is also no need for a guide that close to the tip for line control.
So why a big company that apparently knows what they are doing puts a guide that close to the tip is anybodies guess. Maybe they just think that people who buy heavy Muskie rods expect to see more guides.

I'm thinking that it may have something to do with having rods returned for tip breakage. That short spacing is consistent with all of the new St. Croix Muskie rods I saw at the show. With the weight of a typical Muskie lure, Muskie rods tend to cast fairly well anyhow and an extra guide wouldn't break the bank weight wise; casting a 1lb Bull Dog rips my shoulder enough the way it is, having another guide won't even be noticed.

Good points, Emory. My rule of thumb has been a max of 5 inches from the tip except for heavy surf rods where it can be as much as 7-8 inches with no problems.

I violated the 5 inch rule on a rather expensive blank one time and the rod broke at 4 inches; looking like I had deliberately measured and cut it. I went back to my 5 inch rule and have experienced no problems.

However, I took in a 5 foot 6 inch Boron casting rod that had ratty corroded guides(used in saltwater) spaced as follows: 7-7-7-10-10-10..I replaced the guides using this spacing. It has performed well.

I was looking for a light rod to cast small jigs in the surf for Pompano when I discovered a 12 foot rod used for Crappie fishing. It had a 7-8-9-10... guide progression. I am tempted to put another guide half way between the present first and second guides, but hesitate, I have been using this rod with no problems.

It just makes me want to wonder if the 5 inch rule prevails with the newer rod materials. Looking for opinion from the experts. C2

5" for me!

DR

Several of the big rod manufaturers have started doing this and to be real honest I think that it is because Fuji has convinced them that this is a good idea with their newer low profile guides. But Fuji is in the business of selling guides.

Thanks for the replies. I plan to use this rod as is just to satisfy my curiosity. I may be soory, but at least, I'll know.

Just checked out St Croix,s site, the min they have for all there rods is 4"

See them in person and look at the Muskie rods. I was at the Northwest Sport Show in Minneapolis and looked at all of the St. Croix rods. All of the Muskie rods were in a group and they all were around 2-2 1/2 inches. Every other rod in their both was the more familliar 4" or more. Seeing a sea of rods it was easy to spot the Muskie rods (I'm looking at building a couple of more before the opener so I was looking)

I agree Steve - the OEM rodbuilders with the "no fault" warranties have taken a beating replacing rods with broken tips, etc. 99.9% of these are operator error - this addition of another guide that close to the tip may be some kind of attempt to reduce the number of broken rods. I doubt it will work - most of them are broken in car doors, rod lockers, etc.

I agree Steve - the OEM rodbuilders with the "no fault" warranties have taken a beating replacing rods with broken tips, etc. 99.9% of these are operator error - this addition of another guide that close to the tip may be some kind of attempt to reduce the number of broken rods. I doubt it will work - most of them are broken in car doors, rod lockers, etc.

What are we doing Factory guide placement or Custom rods with the guides placed according to the ( Concept Fashion ) ???

Well Bill I was just interested in what purpose having that close of a guide spacing serves. It's not something that they do on most of their rods, just the Muskie rods. What is the engineering behind it? Anyhow, I emailed St. Croix today and got the following response "Ok, the answer I got was that it gives better line control, and lessons the chance of the line looping around the tip top guide." I'm not sure if I agree but atleast it's plausable and I thank them for giving me an honest response. For me it might make sense if you're often putting your rod in the water doing a figure 8 (I could see getting a line loop doing that) or having line issues when landing a Muskie ( a fairly exciting procedure that is very different than landing other species for C&R). Never pass on an opportunity to learn something new.