I had a customer looking over my rods at a tournament this summer. He got excited about them and asked me to build him a 7' heavy power fast action bass rod, bumper spiraled with split grips, and light weight. So I built the rod as ordered, and used all 6mm Alconites.

I delivered it to him at the next tournament. He looked it over, did a little "ooh and ah," then we parted ways. He calls me the next weekend and says, "All these guides need changed out to full size guides. They're just too small." I explained the advantages of the smaller guides, and told him that many builders including me have gone to 4mm and even micro guides with great results.

He said, "That's cause you guys don't fish in the cold." This guy fishes a winter bass circuit in Illinois, where air temps can be well below freezing while still having open water all winter (in some cases due to fishing power plant discharge lakes that never freeze). He said these small guides will all ice up every few minutes.

I have dealt with this on March , April, and October mornings some years. We fish a winter walleye circuit as well, and we deal with this problem all winter with conventional size guides. I am just now starting 4 vertical jigging rods for the upcoming walleye circuit starting Nov 1st, and I have micro guides ready to go one these builds. Bad idea? Would love to hear thoughts on this from some of you guys that have built with 6mm down to 3mm guides.

I am an avid ice fisherman, so guide ice is nothing new to me. I build my ice rods with 5mm tops and 1st guide to keep weight down. Peoples first reaction is to freak when they see this because ice rods are traditionaly made with guides no smaller than 8mm. I explain to them that those huge stupid guides weigh their UL rods down so much that it kills the sensitivity. I then tell them to get a can of...

BLAKEMORE REAL MAGIC

and spray it on their line and guides. The ice can not build up if it cant stick in the first place.

This also holds true for Great lakes steelhead rods. Ice is a major issue.

Again, you want to use the smallest and lightest guides that will perform the required task. If the guides you used are icing up - then they're too small for this particular application. The smallest you can use in this case might be #8's, or #10's even.

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

Darrell,
I am from Northern Illinois and to fish all winter. I have not used my micro guide rods in the winter yet, but Ihave been using rods with 6mm guides.for many years in the winter. As erick mentioned try Blackmore Reelmagic, works for me.

Scott Sheets
www.smsrods.com

I've notices that Fireline helps in reducing icing. We do a lot of GL steelheading and I noticed last spring that my buddy fishing a factory rod with mono had to de-ice every 15 casts or so. I had #4 guides and was using 6# white Fireline and didn't have an ice problem all day. This summer I have been paying particular attention to how much water drips of rods tips on the retrieve using various lines types and diameters. I figure the amount of drips off the tip must correlate to the freezing potential so the line type/diameter should also be considered in cold weather guide selection. My observations in order of least drips has been Fireline, braids, mono, flouro. A scientific test on the dripping at a constant retrieve speed would be interesting, maybe I will tackle that one of these days.

Great responses, I appreciate it. I do carry and use Reel Magic for taming line, but hadn't used it for preventing ice as Scott and others mentioned. The customer I mentioned in my original post will not use it at all--for whatever reason. He's using 20-25lb mono or copolymer, which likely contributes to the problem. I built him another rod with 8 and 7mm guides, which was acceptable to him (which is incredibly excessive to me). We'll see how that goes this winter.

For winter walleye jigging on the river, a few years ago we switched to 6 or 10 lb PowerPro and Fireline from 8-10lb mono. We haven't had nearly the ice problem since switching......which I had never associated with the use of braid. Six and 10lb braid is typically the same diameter as 2-4 lb mono, so perhaps the smaller diameter and subsequent surface area of the line plays a role in not delivering as much water to the guides? I'm going to proceed with micros on these vertical jiggers and see how it goes this winter. Of course, I'll keep that Reel Magic handy.

Darrell,
A couple of thoughts:
1) Loon Outdoors makes something called "Stanley's Ice-Off Paste" for winter fly-fishing. Try applying it to the guides and the line. Don't know if it will help with mono, but I do know it works very well on the guides.
2) Go to a black blank with all black guides to try to absorb a bit of heat from the sun, certainly not a sure-fire method, but it can help sometimes.
3) I know a guy who swears by vegetable PAM cooking oil sprayed on the line and guides. Almost seems like chumming to me...
George

Darrell,
Where on earth in Illinois is he fishing with 20-25lb line?? Seems pretty excessive.

Scott Sheets
www.smsrods.com

Thanks for the tips George. PAM? That's a new one for me.

Scott, he fishes Newton, Sara, Shelbyville, and probably a few others. He's a machine: same rod, reel, line, and 1/2oz jig 12 mos a year. Seriously...he never deviates from that and is very syuccessful. He is very in tune with that set up, and actually describes the "personality" of each rod he uses. Fascinating guy.

Wouldn't be Mike Black would it?

Scott Sheets
www.smsrods.com

I don't fish in the winter (big time Wuss! Ice is meant to have vodka/tonic over it) but I have read and heard of the Pam on guides for years and have a few friends that swear by it,

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!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2008 12:13AM by Mike Barkley.

Scott, now tell me what (which detail) would make you think I was talking about Mike? Guides, lakes, line wt., or 1//2 OZ JIG 12 months a year?

Mike, I don't ice fish either. Never appealed to me; but, I do love to fish open water in the winter. I have friends up in your neighborhood who brake ice with sledge hammers to get to open water and keep the walleye season going as long as possible. Ice in guides is really a minor inconvenience as far as I'm concerned. Now I'll have Reel Magic and PAM on board just in case the micro guides are a problem....I'm all set!

Darrell Diskey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Scott, now tell me what (which detail) would make
> you think I was talking about Mike? Guides,
> lakes, line wt., or 1//2 OZ JIG 12 months a year?
>

Hah, I KNEW IT!!! All of those details....plus VERY successful. Mike is one heck of an Angler in those parts....heck anywhere....nice guy too.

I'm a big fan of Ice fishing....we have a blast catching monster gill through the ice in the strip pits around here. We pretty much only do it from mid Dec. to end of Jan...once Feb hits we are on the DesPlaines cathing smallies. The Reel Magig works on the size 6 guides at least. I guess I'll find out about the micro guides this winter...

Had another thought. I know some guys around here that use the garlic sented PAM on their lures...could kill two birds with one stone.

Scott Sheets
www.smsrods.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2008 06:13PM by Scott Sheets.

Mike's a very good friend of mine. You're right, he's a great angler and will go to no end to help you when you need it. We just need to move him toward modern rod and reel technology. Then again...................maybe not.

Hi guys
How does the rods setup with micro guides handle braid to fluro leader connections? I find that when using braided mainline of around 4lb and 6lb fluro leader, any guides smaller then size 6 can have difficulty with the knots, we use albright, surgeons and double uni.

I 've used double uni's for brade to fluoro with no significant problem using 6mm, but had show-stopper issues with these knots and 4mm guides. Smaller than 6mm, I'd be very concerned about trying to pass any kind of knot. There's been a number of posts made about this issue here in the past year that are very insightful. Do a search and you're lkely to get some deeper discussion and good info.

I have gone both ways.
i.e. I have built ice rods with micro guides, conventional guides, as well as oversized guides - including the tips.

If fishing in a cottage, or shelter, where there is no issue about line ice - go with the micro guides.
However, for any situation where line ice is likely - save the hassle and go with conventional or even oversize guides.

Hard core fisherman, don't need the hassle of having to make do with special line, special line dressing etc. when just trying to catch a fish.
A fisherman wants to grab a pole, make a cast, or drop a jig into a hole and go to fishing. He / She doesn't want the hassle of a special line dressing, or other something special to have to slow their fishing or to detract from their task at hand.

When ice fishing, I have a very big problem having to equate loss of sensitivity to guide size. Generally speaking you are speaking of 2 or 3 guides on a pole that is 20-30 inches long.
You are also talking about a 10 oz pole that has a reel of comparable weight on it as well. Sure you can go to a 5 oz reel and get a bit less weight, but even for the very picky fisherman, I think that there is very very little to be gained by going to micro guides.

Micro guides grab the attention of todays rod builder, but in general really don't find a large following in the hands of hard core and tournement fisherman.

-------------
If you like micro guides, can live with the size, having to worry about knots and ice passing through the guides - by all means go for it.

However, remember the client is right, and it is up to you as an excellent builder, to give the client the rod that HE/She needs and wants.
Not the rod that You want to build for that person.

Take care
Roger

I asked about, and pointed out before that line leader connections are one of the downsides of micros, IF you are running leader lengths that have the knots continually passing through the guides on the cast and retrieve. For light lines, I would say that 5's are about as small as you can go, even with very tight, streamlined connections. I use 6's for everything up to 30 lbs, and that works ok.

roger wilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> When ice fishing, I have a very big problem having
> to equate loss of sensitivity to guide size.
> Generally speaking you are speaking of 2 or 3
> guides on a pole that is 20-30 inches long.
> You are also talking about a 10 oz pole that has a
> reel of comparable weight on it as well. Sure you
> can go to a 5 oz reel and get a bit less weight,
> but even for the very picky fisherman, I think
> that there is very very little to be gained by
> going to micro guides. > >

>
> Take care
> Roger

I build my UL panfish ice rods on a blank that weighs 1/10 of an ounce on my postage scale. Some of these solid carbon blanks are so light that the addition of oversized guides cause the rod to whip when you jig, essentialy killing any feel you have. The weight of the total unit is not a consideration in most cases because the reel outweighs the rod by several times, but you cant put guides on that will cause the rod to flex under their weight. I have not run into anyone yet that wanted an ice rod built just like the ones that they sell in the hardware store for $8.