I was just wondering when or why do we use each? I recently stripped down a 9' rod I built for myself that had TYSG guides on it and the guides seemed to be too high off the blank. I ordered some LVSG guides to replace them since the guides are positioned lower. When is a high guide position wanted or beneficial? From my experience, guides that are closer to the blank give the rod a more responsive feel. The rod is for light surf duty to toss small plugs and jigs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2009 02:18PM by james shin.

On spinning rods, you almost always have to use both. Higher frame guides to effectively keep the line from slapping the blank near the butt and mid area, but lower frame guides once the line is under control. See the New Guide Concept article in the online library page here.

On casting rods, things are a bit fuzzier. But they needn't be. Generally, if you're locating the guides on top of the rod, then you want the lowest frames possible. This reduces the lever arm effect and will help lessen the torque felt as the rod attempts to turn or twist to face the direction the load is being applied from. You cannot eliminate this, but with very low frame guides you can reduce it a great deal.

Of course, the lower the guides are the more of them you may have to use to keep the line from dropping below the rod blank when the blank is under heavy load. Today's guides are lighter than ever before so using 1 or perhaps 2 more than might have used back in the 80's or 90's doesn't incur the weight penalty it would have then.

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