I don't want to beat the micro guide debate to death, I was curious and decided to set up a rod to test myself. I had a couple of jigging blanks laying around from St. Croix, they are the 3C62MXF blanks. I set them up as vertical jigging rods so casting distance was not my main intent. I set up two rods on the same blanks similar spinning handles (1 wood, 1 burl cork) weight between the rods before the guides were installed was very similar, with in a couple tenth's of an ounce. Both of the rods were set up using the concept guide system, I was planning on using the micro set up as my own rod so I used more guides than necessary. The micro rod used a 20mm for the choking guide, 8mm for the next and then 3mm for the balance with a 4mm tip top, there were 8+1 for the micro set up. The conventional was set up with a 25mm for the choking guide, next was a 16mm, then 8mm, followed by 6mm to the 6mm tip top, the total guides used was 7+1. The conventional set up had one less guide than the micro set up. The first thing that I noticed was the balance point on the micro guides was 2" further back (even with one extra guide) than the conventional wrap. In order to keep every thing the same I used the same Shimano 1000 spin reel spooled with 8 pound fire line for both rods, and the same 3/8 oz sinker. I took the reel off of one rod and put it on the other.

I took both rods out this morning to test cast them, there is a snow drift that I was casting into so the weight stopped when it hit the ground and didn't keep rolling when it hit the ground. The micro guide rods best cast was 165', the conventional guides best cast was 153'. The micro only had one cast less than 153', I know this isn't very scientific as I'm the wild card and I'm sure there are other variables, but I was more than satisfied with the performance of the micros. There have been several that doubt that the micros will perform as well as the larger (macro) guides, I like the guides and am glad that I tried it for myself I hope others try it for themselves and will post their results as well. I'm sorry if it's a long read, I just found the results interesting and thought that I'd share what I found. Thanks Mark

casting into a snowbank. wow i just mowed the yard so i can test a rod. i plan on a build with the micros next

Mark, thanks for the info!! How did you hold the darn things on the blank to wrap?????????????

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Mark;
Thank you for the info. I appreciate you doing the testing and posting the results.

I get the feeling sometimes from some of the emails and posts I’ve received that people think I am just trying to push Batsons products.
So it's good to see another posting their test results.

Actually I guess I do push the Batson products, but it's because of the results I've seen with them, not because I am receiving any type of profit for doing so.

Steve,

It's not a crime here to push a sponsor's product. Especially if it's an awesome quality product.

Bill in WV

Mark,
Thanks for the test. I wonder how it would work with 8lbs floro line? Since the braid is very limp and floro has much more memory that may affect the casting? Do you have any floro or even a copolymer line to try this with? If not no problem.

Thanks. Stan

Noted that your testing was done with spinning set up. Do you think the influence of the "cone of flight" effect of using differenct size larger ring guides had more to say about your test than the small micros out on the end? I would think this was an entirely different situation than with micros on a casting set up. Your test data was really effected big time with large percentage numbers - more so than I would expect on a casting set up.

Everything you did is in perfect harmony with the fact that the set of "micro" guides weighed less than the other set. That rod was more efficient and thus used more of your imparted energy to go into the cast and less into starting and stopping the mass of the rod.

You could also go back and do another test, using the same size butt and transition guides on both rods, but use smaller running guides on one rod and larger ones on the other. Your results will then be even better suited to the actual difference made by using micro guides for the running guide portion - this is the place where they'd normally be used anyway.

Your results indicate about a 7% difference, which is substantial in this instance. I'd have thought closer to 5% maximum, but overall I'm not surprised.

It should be noted that the same guide sizes might not work as well with larger reels or heavier line.

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One of the first statements that I kept tripping over when I first started visiting this site was from Tom and said something to the effect that you should use the smallest size and fewest number of guides that still performed the required task. Your experiment seems to confirm this!

JP, we had plenty of snow this year almost 100" for the year to date, finding a snow bank wasn't to hard (lol). Mike I thought the little buggers would be hard to wrap as well, I was pleasantly surprised as to the ease of wrapping. I just taped the guides on the same way I do the larger guides, I did have to use my magnifying headband to see them though. Steve, thanks for pointing the micros out. They are a very good product and I think the more people that try them the more we can learn about them; I think they have limitations as far as passing knots, but in this application they will work perfectly. Stan I haven't stripped the guides off the macro set up yet, I think I have some 8 pound mono spooled up, I'll try to throw some tomorrow and see how that works out. Bill I have heard of problems with the small guides in baitcasters, I have no experience with a baitcaster set up this way so I really couldn't comment on them. If I get some time I may give them a whirl on the next rod and I'll try to let you know how that works out. Tom I have thought about the set up on both rods, both probably could have used a guide or two less to start with. I'll give another mix of guides a try. I thought that the extra guide on the micros may have offset the advantage of the lighter guides as adding guides should have caused more friction making is cast less distance. It wasn't the case in this instance, I need to do some more experimentation before I can claim this is the best set up ever, the initial test however has been promising.

Mark;
You are most welcome!
I think you will be quite pleased if not blown away by your results with bait casters.

I appreciate it, thanks.

Long ago we knew that smaller guides worked as good or better but you had to get the first few up high to keep the line from smacking the rod blank.

I think most better custom builders have known for at least a few decades that good spinning rod casting depends on smaller rings and higher frames. The only question that remained was how small a ring could you actually use. Line isn't very large and the comments many fishermen make about how smaller rings choke the line or increase friction on the cast never seemed reasonable to me. Early articles in Rodmaker convinced me to go as small as possible. But we were all still limited by the sizes that were offered by the guide makers. I don't think I ever saw much of anything smaller than about a #5 ring until fairly recently. So that was as small as I'd ever gone. They worked fine right up to the 12 pound mono I was using.

The new guide concept especially as tweaked by Tom is excellent work and his articles put even more emphasis on getting weight off the tip of the rod. If you can use the very smallest guides that will still pass the line I'd think the balance will continue to improve and the casting distance would also continue to increase.

Mark, your tests don't surprise me and I agree with them but until you put the same butt guide on both rods I'm not sure you can state any difference being due to the micro running guides alone. All else would have to be equal. I think you'd still get more distance but I'd like to see the test repeated with everying else being equal except for the micro running guides. That would give what I would think would be about the most scientific results you could get by human casting means.

Bill you have a very good point. It won't take a lot to change the guide set up for the larger guides so I'll give it a go sometime this week and post back. I only wish there was a way to take the human out of the equation.

Without a casting machine, you can't. But there is something you can do that will help remove as much of the human error as possible.

Make at least 50 casts each yourself. Then, have at least 3 or 4 other guys do the same. At some point, the preponderance of evidence/results will fall towards the side of the better set up.

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Something I found that Tom said four years ago that keeps reminding me that we use guides that bigger than they need to be. But are we talking about using micro giudes as butt guides or for the running guides??



Posted by: Tom Kirkman (Moderator)

Date: April 26, 2004 11:01AM


As far as how it works, well, I guess we'd just have to try it. Keep in mind that a Zebco 33 actually casts pretty darn well. You've got a line spool fronted 1/4 inch away with a #10 ring sized opening. One the line moves out of the reel face, it's moving in a straight line. Works very well, so this is a concept that isn't totally without merit.

The translation is a bit funky for sure, but the overall idea might not be bad at all.

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The micro guides being discussed are small, very low frame single foot fly type guides most often used as running guides, not butt guides. They wouldn't likely cut the mustard for a spinning rod butt guide as they're much too low. The line would have a field day against the rod blank if such guides were used in that location. The rod would still cast, but it wouldn't be ideal.

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