Anyone ever spiral wrap a heavy bait stick using a aftco HD51 as the stripper guide, a roller tip and heavy(HNSG or LRSG) guides inbetween? Any reasons why it wouldn't work? thx

Jim
On the guild board you asked abour offsetting that first guide--the stripper guide. You do not want to build a high leverage rod like a casting rod. That offset stripper guide works fine for casting rods using a level wind reel. It is catastrophic for high leverage rods. When using ring guides that first guide is actually offset about 5 degrees in the opposite direction of your spiral. Wilth a roller guide it should be TDC. Contact John Stumpe of Melbourne Fla. phone number 321-723-5263 John builds high leverage rods with the Roberts wrap, as a business, and has done more research on them than any one else that I know of.

Ralph

Jim
On the guild board you asked abour offsetting that first guide--the stripper guide. You do not want to build a high leverage rod like a casting rod. That offset stripper guide works fine for casting rods using a level wind reel. It is catastrophic for high leverage rods. When using ring guides that first guide is actually offset about 5 degrees in the opposite direction of your spiral. Wilth a roller guide it should be TDC. Contact John Stumpe of Melbourne Fla. phone number 321-723-5263 John builds high leverage rods with the Roberts wrap, as a business, and has done more research on them than any one else that I know of.

Ralph

I'm somewhat confused now, I used your method as outlined in Rodmaker to build a bunch of 8' tuna rods and one 61/2 heavy tuna rod, all offsetting the first guide as you outlined. Have caught many tuna this summer with no problems, had a 150bft on my heavy rod but lost it. I don't own a level wind reel. What problems could I be facing that I'm unaware of.
Going fishing for several days so won't get to see your response till then, taking the same rods on this trip! thx for your help

Jim,

If it is working for you, leave it alone. There is some tendency for rods where extreme loads are expected, to pile line heavy to one side or make things much more difficult for you to evenly distribute the line on a non-level wind reel if the first guide is offset. I have found this only occurs on the very heavy-duty type rods.

If you were going to have problems, they would have become apparent by now. What we are learning, is that the spiral wrap, in one form or another, offers advantages on nearly all types of casting/conventional rods.

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

Jim
I will emphasize what Tom is emphasizing. "IF IT IS WORKING FOR YOU, LEAVE IT ALONE.". I have been critisized loud and long by many an EXPERT for my offset guide concept, and since I haven't explored the concept with high leverage rods beyond our halibut rods--I usually will go along with what those who are actually fishing these rods convey. The usual belief is that with the offset guide, the line will tend to stack up on one side of the reel under heavy load. I found in preliminary tests on halibut rods, that if you put that first offset guide about 20 inches from the reel face -- you negate the tendency for line stacking. I was not aware that you have actually been fishing these rods, your post sounded like this was going to be your first experiment with the wrap around. You are far more of an authority on the wrap around as it relates to high leverager/ Tuna rods, than I am, and I anticipate learning more from you in the future.

Ralph

Thx for all the comments, I just got in off a tuna trip where I caught 6 10-25# tuna on my 8'spiral wrapped rods, worked great. Tried like @#$%& to get bit on a new 7' spiral wrapped rod where I used the setup suggested by Sangeroo of Allcoast fame where the first and second guides are at roughly 12-30 degrees and the third goes all the way to 160 then 175 degrees, idea being to keep the guides as close to 0 degrees as possible. Naturally I couldn't get bit on this rod to save my soul! Gonna try tomorrow on another tuna trip. Sang says his work fine so I gotta try. thx again for the comments guys-