Has anyone ever used Snake Guides on a spinning rod? Would it work? I'm looking at some Recoil Snake guides and I was wondering if I'm just wasting my time.

~Jon

There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind

I haven't done it because I think that snakes will let the line touch the blank, and because I've read (here) that the Recoils will groove, over time.

You could only use them in the running guide positions. They will not work as well as ringed guides. Give them a try and see for yourself.

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Snake guides work fine on any rod that places them under the rod and have been around for years.
It's some of the placement strategy's that fail if the guide offset height goes to zero.
A well designed placement strategy is one that is not overly affected by guide offset height.
I would not place them as the first two guides nearest the reel as the line playing off a spinning reel is rotating as it's being fed creating a helix. This would slap the blank but would still function.
They also will not function correctly in a spiral wrap until the line is under the rod due the the same contact with the blank.

Hi Jon,

I had a friend that did this because he wanted the lightest rod possible rod thinking it would out-perform everything else he had. He did it with ceramic strippers and snake running guides but later took them off replacing them with ceramic single foot fly guides, not sure what his issue was but he was not sold on the idea. I am sure he liked the weight but prefered ceramics for fishing mono??? The funny thing is, I have a trout pond and my son wanted to do the same thing while building a rod for fishing it. I talked him out of the idea but didn't have solid reasoing behind it, so you might want to try it for yourself and the worst thing that could happen is a re-wrap if you don't like it. I would like to know your opinion after.

Best Regards,

Darrin Heim
American Tackle Company