Hello All!

Been away for a bit, but I recently had a request for the following:

Here in the Puget Sound area, we sometimes troll for salmon with "meat lines". They are a short, stiff rod, that uses stainless braid for trolling lures. (I think there was a post about a similar rod, used in the great lakes, recently).

The tip top of the rod is a roller guide top. But it is a guide that also swivels left and right.

I have not been able to find any of these for sale anywhere, and was wondering if anyone has any they would like to sell? Or if anyone knows of a company that may carry them?

Here is a link to a picture of two types of these tops.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Chris

Swivel Tops

Black Chrome.
Double plated to resist corrosion.
Perfect for heavy duty saltwater trolling rods. The ones we have only come in black

Robert

Chris,
I have been working most of the summer on a wire rod program. There are really no great solutions that work 100% effective. That wire is very squirly stuff. Aftco also makes a swivel roller with a SIC guide ring on the outbound side, but it is very pricey. I haven't had any issues with the wire on the outbound side myself, since my rods are all spirals. I have had a couple of rods requested with Pac Bay rollers, had to use a Twilly tip on those to accommodate the guides being on top of the blank. As I have stated before, I hate the Twilly tip, but can't argue its effectivness. My customers issues usually stem from the inbound side of the roller tips. With no tension, the wire gets very crazy and wraps the tip up if the angler is not very cautious. Wire gets curly after repeated use, no way around that. I am messing around with wrapping a 6mm sic casting guide right at the entrance to the roller so see if it helps calm down the wire while the line is slack. As much as I hate to say it, the problem is almost non existent with the Twilly tip-man that hurt.

Thanks for posting, guys.

Tony, any idea how heavy of wire the twilly tops can handle?

Chris



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2008 03:57PM by Chris Herrera.

Chris, I have some of those guides in the picture on the left. But not many.What tube size do you need?
Dennis J. Danku(Sayreville,NJ)

Dennis, email sent.

Chris

Most of th guys here are running 30# .012 dia. stainless. You would be able to go much heavier than that as the opening in the entry end is almost .125, then opens to almost .5 . I checked-my 150# downrigger cable slides thru no problem, so they will take pretty heavy stuff.

Thanks Tony.

Also, do you guys run just divers and lures off of these? We run a 5 lb weight, and a silver horde plug behind them. 'Course the rods we use are pretty stiff, too.

Chris

Yes, .012 stainless main line, Mag Dipsy Diver, 6' - 50# leader, then plug, spoon, fly rig, or meat rig with teaser. Water fleas don't stick to the wire, gets serious depth even compared to braids, and has the same harmonics as the rigger cables. Only con is the no stretch thing, and a propensity to eat inferior guide materials for lunch. The wire also works well fishing the combat harbor patrol program when the fish are inside the pier heads, along with 100 boats-kind of reminds you of the Muslim Hodge pilgrimage; everone going around in circles screaming and hollering obscenities at one another. You only need to have 30-50 feet of line out, and can stop a fish in it's tracks if need be.