Thought I might get your take on this gentleman's ideas on non-traditional fly rod building. ex. right hand vs. left hand rods and 15 guides on a 9 ft. rod. As always, thank you for your comments.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2010 12:33PM by Rob Grider.

If you let the line flow through your stripping hand, then the guides placed a touch closer to that side may help....or a seat offset a few degrees so that the reel hangs verticle and the guides are closer to the center of the body of the caster. more guides.......only to reduce line belly, but without adding too much.

I don't want to knock what a custom builder is doing to market and promote his work. But there are some things we know to be true and other things we know to be false. So having said that, this builder is correct in saying that friction between the guides and line does not really have much to do with reducing casting distance. There is very little friction between the line and the guides on the cast because there is very little force pressing the surfaces against each other.

However, adding weight to a rod blank can and usually does reduce distance, and certainly undermines the reaction and recovery rate (speed) of the rod. How much so depends on how much weight is added, and where.

Today's rod builder has the benefit of using some of the lightest guides ever made. Thus I'd grant that you can use a couple more than absolutely necessary and still perhaps build a lighter and more responsive rod than if you had done the same thing 10 years ago with guides that were much heavier. But, 15 guides on a 9 foot rod just isn't necessary and if he reduced that number by at least a quarter he'd not only gain a little casting distance (assuming the rod was properly loaded with the right line to begin with) but would certainly have a more responsive rod.

Right versus left hand rods, via an offset stripping guide has been argued for years. Take a good look at what is really happening, however. Offsetting that guide even 45 degrees only moves the point of contact surface a few millimeters to one side, which has no real bearing on anything - the line doesn't know where the rod is in relation to the guide. Couple that with the fact that not everyone casts with their rod in a perfectly vertical plane. I do a great deal of sidearm casting and the line is then going through a ring that is a full 90 degrees to the rod blank shaft, but the line doesn't know that. This might be a great marketing topic and I certainly don't blame the builder for using it, but it cannot possibly have any effect on casting quality or distance.

Now having said all this, I hope the guy sells a lot of rods and becomes very successful. He appears to do nice work.

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I have tried offsetting the first few guides on fly rods and could not tell one iota of difference in terms of casting. What I COULD tell a difference in was the funky feel when fighting a fish. Suddenly you are no longer having the line pull down straight on your guides but pulling to the side of the last few guides exactly where the load is the greatest. Not for me. No sir.

And keep in mind that this guy advertises that guide to line friction has no effect on casting distance so how does offsetting the guides to reduce friction make sense? His statements contradict one another!

Good call Peter!! Here are two quotes from the website that I believe will help you separate the chafe from the wheat!

"I found that right and left handed rods cast further and the fly line lasts longer because of the reduction in friction due to the offset butt guides."

"Guide friction does not significantly reduce casting distance."

Certainly no harm intended but this gentleman needs to make up his mind!

The amount of friction between the line and the guides doesn't change just because you offset them to one side or the other. You can move the guides up, down, over, etc., and the friction there isn't going to change. If here were to have someone else hold the rod and view them from the side, he would notice that the angle of the line to the guide ring from the line hand, will be the same no matter if the guide is directly beneath the rod or offset to the side. He has misidentified the reason the guides moved while he was casting.

The movement of the guides wasn't due to friction - it was due to the lever arm effect of the guides. The guides will move or attempt to move in the direction the load is being applied from. If the guides were merely taped on, they slipped towards the side of his line hand. Of course, if he had hooked a fish and put the rod under a vertical load, at that point they would also have moved back directly underneath the rod.

I don't think he's trying to hoodwink anybody - he just hasn't thought it through completely, yet. Let's not turn this into a thread of insults and flames against this builder.

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I did not mean to give him a hard time about it, but did use his own words to contradict him. Sorry.

Thinking this offset bit through a little, it occurs to me that offsetting a guide does nothing. We only call it offset because we can see the relationship of the guide frame to the rod. It appears offset but in reality, nothing has changed. The small circle that is a guide ring simply moves over a speck when we offset it to one side on the rod blank. You are correct --- if the line does not know where the rod is in relation to the ring, then to the line the ring is not offset. It is still just a round ring hanging out there in space!

Oh Cmon Guys Just Relax........Oh and "Add Another Guide" that should make everything OK........lol

Barry,

Pretty much, yes. The line has no way of knowing that the guide has been offset - it's still a circle.

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If you hold a rod and turn it a few degrees to one side or the other to stimulate the same thing as offsetting the guide you see that you are only moving it a quarter inch or something one way or the other. Can that really make any difference? I don't think it does. Thats not really moving the guide closer to the line shooting hand by an amount that could really make any difference. Could it??

Would this mean changing rods depending on which side of the stream we fish from ie current right to left or current left to right ? What if we can cast with either hand ? Sounds like a good marketing plan.

Tom,
I think that you are being too kind to this fella. There are numerous statements in his write up that are flat wrong, enough that I think that he is intentionally blowing smoke.
The following are some examples of errors or intentionally misleading statements in addition to those already pointed out.
1. He states that hardwod handles result in better sensitivity than cork. In fact, hardwoods weigh more than cork and therefore result in poorer sensitivity.
2. He states that carbon fiber handles weigh less than cork. In fact, the commercially available carbon fiber materials weigh a little more than cork of the same diameter.
3. He states that his carbon fiber handles have a cavity in them that amplifiys vibrations and increases sensitivity. This is total baloney for several reasons. The most obvious reason being, vibrations travel at roughly 1000 ft./sec. in air, roughly 10 times that in carbon fiber, which means that the carbon fiber grip would have to be huge, many orders of magnitude larger than the grip on a fly rod, to be resonant at the frequencies that are transmitted up a fishing rod.
There is a well known custom rod builder that a few years ago gave talks around the country at rod building gatherings on the resonant cavities in his rod handles amplifying vibrations until he was shown that it was completely bogus.

I'm being kind because like many builders, I think he is just engaging in wishful thinking - or what seems to make sense to the untrained. He may actually believe the statements he has on his website. Those statements you point out are certainly wrong, but I don't think they were put there to intentionally mislead anyone. He's wrong, but I tend to think he's also sincere.

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Kind of like the new excessive guides craze in bass rods. More guides = more points of contact = more sensitivity. The pros who say things like that probably really believe it.

Mr. Statler, who operates the website Rob linked to, sent me an email concerning this topic and just as I stated above, he is sincere in his beliefs. He is not attempting to purposely mislead anyone. I defended Mr. Statler several times above - not necessarily his statements on friction and guide numbers, but him personally.

He also registered and wished to respond under this topic and I would been more than happy to let him engage in conversation here. However, his profanity laced email did not endear me to accommodate him at this time. Per the rules, I do not allow that sort of thing to take place here, by anyone.

If you go around the internet and look at the various websites of both commercial and custom builders, you will find all sort of statements that fly in the face of science and reason. I don't like to see these people bashed - we're all rod builders. This is why I ask that when folks here want to discuss such statements that they simply paraphrase the statements rather than linking to the actual website. This way, nobody feels as if they're being personally attacked.


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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2010 11:07AM by Tom Kirkman.

It is a shame that someone should send such an email regardless of the circumstances. Given the diplomatic way in which Tom conducted himself it is totally out of line.

Tom is the epitome of southern gentleman and I greatly admire his ability to treat all in a fair an even handed manner.

On one hand it is a shame that he can not participate / respond but more importantly the rules here have to be observed. I think it would be interesting to discuss here the concept of Texalium and other grips on fly rods; sensitivity, comfort etc. as well as the number of guides on a rod (how many, types and spacing) but I need no more profanity in my life.

He had no reason to be upset with you, Tom. You were the one here that defended his honor. If I in any way contributed to his unsavory comments towards you I apologize. Still, I will stand by my earlier statements purely from a scientific viewpoint. If this fellow's positions were capable of being true, then the known truths of mathematics and physics would have to be completely rewritten.

One final note, I did appreciate his use of carbon fiber tubes for his handles, but wonder if he is aware that many here are making their own shaped carbon fly rod handles over rigid brick foam. These would seem to be a better fit for fly rods and certainly more pleasing to the eye.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

This fella sent me an e-mail as well and frankly Tom was correct and I misjudged him. I thought that he was just a con man but I was wrong. After reading over his e-mail it was clear that he is actually sincere and believes the baloney on his web site. His e-mail also made it very clear that he is not the source for the baloney. It comes from a baloney source that is well known in some rod building circles.