I wonder if anyone has made a comparison between two rods.
Lets say that you have a high quality blank, that is considered senstie by most folks that weighs 1.5 ozs.

Then, for example one - put a light weight #6 tip on the rod and one guide on the rod about 2/3s of the way up. Then, put on a tennessee handle that has a 3 oz reel taped to it.
Fish with it.

Then, take the same model blank, and build it in a conventional way with 5 or 6 guides using conventional techniques, and a standard reel seat , back grip and fore grip. Then, put on a 5 oz reel and fish with it.

I would guess that the first combination would come out to about 1/2 the weight of the 2nd combination. Forgetting the fact that you aren't going to necessarily have the power in the first rod, due to lack of guides - will you find the first rod - due to its much lighter weight more sensitive?

I would guess that with only one guide on the first rod, that one should be able to cast a very very long distance with the rod. It might be an interesting experiment.

Take care
Roger

Ahhhh Yes............... Mongrel Language this English of ours.
Too many meanings of the same word and context is everything in interpreting the meaning of a written word.
In any of the contexts of sensitivity it is an utterly subjective thing and depends on the ability of the angler to "read" the message his rod is giving him/her. Tim's latter post about gloves & cold weather puts the sort of sensitivity he is referring to into a focused context.

Tim,
The simple answer to your query is........... Yes , replacing the old heavy guides with light single foot guides will improve the visual sensitivity of your rod & as Tom K has indicated ..............it will also most likely lead to a more balanced outfit in the hand as a result too.

Tom K also makes the point that in responding to your query we do not know what sort of blank you are currently using & proposing to rebuild.
lighter guides etc will improve the current blank to a measurable extent, but visual sensitivity will be optimised with a blank with a thin, light tip more than anything you can achieve by adjusting the components on the rod.
Whether your current rod will achieve your objective of high visual sensitivity is not really possible to tell without knowing its type & model number , or at least its line / lure class.

British 'Match' & 'Coarse' Anglers take visual sensitivity to its extreme with "nibble tip" rods which have a very thin fibreglass insert in the tip which is replaceable ( a ferrule set up ) and is extremely sensitive as the name indicates.................. these are effective with relatively light terminal tackle of up to about 1/2 or so , but their light nature obviously makes their use with heavy terminal tackle not very viable.
As Tom indicates, for heavier terminal tackle a rod with a light fibreglass tip will optimise visual sensitivity and are available in a reasonable range of "live bait" type rods.

DenisB

Thanks for the help guys. I know I could have selected a blank to behave the exact way I wanted it to but something was missed in my original post - "if I take an old rod" meaning a specific rod that I already had and wanted to rebuild it, but somehow that was missed. I'm going to dig up my Volume 11 Issue 1, hopefully I won't be even more confused. But what Bill Colby said was worded in a way that I understand - the rest I'm still trying to absorb. Thanks again.

For the ultimate in weight-reduction and sensitivity, handlining with straight gelspun is the only answer. It depends on what you're looking for, and how much you are willing to sacrifice to get it.

Roger - that's exactly the kind of test I was referring to in my original post to this thread. Like Phil, I said that the line-in-the-hand test is actually the ultimate solution to "sensitive".

Tim, I want to thank you for pointing out Bill's answer, because it made me go back and read it several times and each time I learned something new. And for that, I want to thank everyone who jumped on my answer because it made me think about the subject all over again. Never any harm in that.

Hey, Tim, hoiw come you're not on the trip with Dave?

UNcle Russ

Roger - that's exactly the kind of test I was referring to in my original post to this thread. Like Phil, I said that the line-in-the-hand test is actually the ultimate solution to "sensitive".

Tom, I noticed that this thread didn't have any mention about the rod materials or "stiffness", unless of course I just missed that in my reading. I think maybe those two factors enter into it as well, but perhaps that's for a whole 'nother thread sometime in future.

Tim, I want to thank you for pointing out Bill's answer, because it made me go back and read it several times and each time I learned something new. And for that, I want to thank everyone who jumped on my answer because it made me think about the subject all over again. Never any harm in that.

Hey, Tim, how come you're not on the trip with Dave?

UNcle Russ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2008 09:05PM by Russ Pollack.

Roger,
Yes, there has been testing done. I wrote an article on sensitivity that was in RodMaker Volume 10-Issue 1. The article will give you most of the variables that determine the sensitivity of the rod. It will explain mechanical impedance (resistance to the transmission of vibrations) of materials and of the rod and how that affects the amplitude of vibrations, the affects of incident and reflected vibrations, rod angle and longitudinal versus transverse vibrations, velocity and amplitude of vibrations and the affect of different handle materials. It will also explain resonant frequency and damping factor. However, if you refer to the article, in it I made a serious, stupid mistake and concluded that a more flexible rod is more sensitive when actually the stiffer a rod, assuming no increase in weight, the more sensitive it will be. I missed the fact that any energy that goes into deflecting the blank is energy that is temporarily stored in the blank and that does not initially get to the fisherman's hand. One of the people posting on Rodbuilding.org found the error and pointed it out to me to my embarrassment.
I also have done a good deal of additional testing since the article was written. I used two different Rainshadow blanks that the Batsons were kind enough to give me that had the same action angle and power but with different modulus of elasticities. If you are interested I can give you the results of the additional testing and if you want can explain to you how the testing was done.
I also wrote an article in Volume 8-Issue 3 of RodMakere that was the result of a good deal of testing on the affect of different guide configurations and their mass and their affect on resonant frequency. Resonant frequency and sensitivity will correlate resonably well as most of the same varibale that affect one affect the other.

Denis,
I think that you are right. We need two different words. One for our ability to see vibrations or movement in the tip of the rod and the force and/or movement that we feel at the reel seat. It seems to me that Bill Hanneman's word "censitivity" works for the visual detection of vibrations or movement and that leaves the word "sensitivity" to mean what it has traditionally meant, the force or movement that is detected, felt at the reel seat. I think that it is important to use two different words because there is obviously some confusion and also because the two require rods with to different properties. Censitivity requires a rod with a flexible, light weight tip, while sensitivity requires a rod with a light weight but stiff tip.

Russ,
I am not sure that the line in the fisherman's hand is the "ultimate" when we are after all interested in building rods and interested in the sensitivirty of the rods we build. Using that logic I would argue that the "ultimate" would be grabbing the fish directly by the mouth without any line in the way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2008 09:45PM by Emory Harry.

Russ
More confusion here for me as I have re-read Bill C's post a number of times too, trying to figure out the context of where he was coming from, in his first two comments:-
" lighter rod will be stiffer "...................regret I still cannot fathom that approach ..............from where I sit the inertia of the lighter rod says to me that the blank will deflect more easily for a given load. ( assuming Bill's comment was in the context of the same blank with heavier / lighter guides.).
I must be missing something in Bill's context !!!!!!.

The second comment.............ie "the blank with the heavier guides is already trying to move " I regret I am also still trying to fathom as the more
'pre-load' on the rod the harder it is to move the next increment & the more force it takes to get the same amount of deflection as a less 'loaded ' rod.
Again I must be missing something in Bill's context.

Ohhh the woes of context & the english language..... and the perception of the reader.
We are all biased by our own context of what we are reading.

Maybe Bill C can enlighten me/us more.
DenisB

I was confused by the comments too. I don't understand how pre-loading changes the power (resistance to bending) of the tip. If anything it would seem besides the inertia issue the rod will be pre-bent further down and deeper into the increasing power of the taper thus taking more force to bend incrementally further. As I understand Tim's question more it would seem the lighter guides would be less pre-load and more of the less powerful taper closer to the tip exposed to the "pulse" of the fish bite. It would seem to me that the tip would move sooner and very quickly get to the same point as the pre-load (sag) and then continue to move pretty much as it did with the heavier guides with the exception that with its slightly higher recovery speed it would recover a little faster and little further between "pulses" if the fish is bumping the lure or is head shaking.

The end result in my mind would be a more intense "throbbing" (higher frequency?). What I'm certainly not sure about is if this "improvement" is of a magnitude in and of itself to improve hook-up rate (more bites seen sooner and quicker response by angler). But, as pointed out, there are other advantages to lightening up so why not. btw, I think the heavier guides on the original build is most likely the perspective that a "heavy" rod must have "heavy" guides (at least to appeal to the angler in the store).