Afraid my follow up from yesterday won't get seen and I want some advice and insight from float rod builders. I am building a 13'6" 3pc. Raven spinning float rod (not center pin or fly reel) for a friend. His reel is size 2000 Quantum. I intend to go BYAG25-BYAG12, then BLAG6s on out. Maybe even BYAG20 and BYAG10 for first 2 guides. I notice a lot of factory float rods have match style guides in size 6 out by the tip. Any reason for this? Seems like if you are already comfortable with size 6 for icing, then the match style would just add a bunch of extra weight and on a rod so long, that can' be a good thing. If I'm wrong, please tell me why - I've never built or fished a float rod so I'm here to learn. Thanks, Steve

Hi Steve,
I read through your previous post quickly after seeing this one and I seesomething has been left out in the info about the match guides being used. Match guides to my knowledge were designed to be high stand off to keep your line from sticking to the blank when its wet. If icing is present then that just adds to the issue as well. Casting light float, or any really light weight gear with light line when its raining and your line is sticking to the blank becomes really frustrating so it needn't be said that the guides should not be placed too far apart. Fly guides may not be high enough to keep your line from sticking to the blank, even just the line being wet will allow it to stick.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2008 11:06AM by Earl Hamilton.

I appreciate the caution Earl but Scott's reply to my other post gives me confidence that the fly-style ceramic guides will work well for me for this project. It seems that no guide type is going to prevent ice from being at least somewhat of a problem for northeast winter steelhead fishing. Given that reality, I at least want the rod to be as light and comfortable as possible to fish with.

Steve
I have used and built a few float rods all for centerpinning, not a spinning reel, the idea with match guides is to reduce slap on tthe blank when casting. I believe they were originally developed with spinning reels in mind. I typically use 3-4 match style guides right off the reel, transition to a spinning style then a low frame spinning then to a fly guide to the tip. I typically do not drop below size 7 on my guides and have run 8's to the tip with good results. In my area icing is a big issue and the slightly larger size will prolong the icing to some degree if you keep you tip dry but in the end all guides will ice no matter the size. One other thing to look at, a lot of guys have had great success with recoil guides, and report to have a longer times between ice ups, I don't have any personal experience with them though.

jj

Thanks for sharing your experience Jason - I appreciate it.