I am building a trout rod with micro guides. I am going to set the rod up as a spinning rod, but I dont know what size guide to use as a stripper . Has any one built this type rod before and can you help. I have a 6'6" light action rod and # 4 micro guides.

Have built many
What size reel you going to use?
What type of line?
What size line?
And any other info that might assist people in giving you an informed answer

Rule of thumb for a spinning rod is to use a butt guide with a ring that is 1/2 the diameter of the reel spool at the lip.

That said, I've found you can go with a smaller ring if you keep the height and or when using braided line.

Like Steve said, need morer info.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Thanks for your help, I need all I can get. As for the Q's above, reel something in the 1000 size 80 yards or so of 6# test mono.

A #20 would work fine then.

I'd go with a #20, #16, #10, then your #4's to the tip but I would also try test casting with it starting with the #16 instead of the #20 especially if I thought I might
be using a smaller reel in the future.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

I use 16s with 3000 size reels. I'd say order a 16 and a 12 and see which works better for you. go with the highest framed guide you can for the stripper. My gut would be to try a 12 if you are putting on a 1000 reel.

Following the 16, id go low 8, fly 6 and then 4s.

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AD

i just built a similar setup and i went 16M guide 16vs guide i think i used a 10 or 8 then 4's the rest of the way using pac bay minimas.. i don't have the rod handy to look at it. it will change of course if you go with different guides, but i would still start with a 16. if you use an M guide you can get the height for a good setup

All three of the above posts represent excellent advice, and as you can see you have a few different options to work with, depending on what you want to accomplish.
I will also put one more out there and that is with that light of a line you could get away with even a 10mm guide.
Since you are new to building then I would advice trying two or three of the options the learning experience is priceless, and the extra guides represent a minimal cost and you will have them to use later on other rods or for further experimenting.

All of the posts are excellent with respect to this question.

The only thing that I might suggest is to use one of the setups listed above and make a couple of tests.
As posted, I would likely go with a 20,16,10 - 6, and 4s.

Do some test casting with a weight of the size - with which you will normally fish. Just do the test casting with the guides taped in place. Do at least 20 or so casts to be able to replicate the distance pretty well.

Then, change only the first guide - first to a size 25 - repeat the tests, and then to a size 30 and repeat the tests.

Finally, repeat the tests with both 4 lb test line - as well as with 8 lb test line.

My guess is that the 20 size stripper will be a pretty good size, but you might find that for some conditions - whether is is wind, line size, and or possible different reel size - that a size 25 or 30 might actually be a better choice.

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Just as a thought, for most of my spinning style fishing, I have gradually been switching over to the Bass Pro Shops extreme reel, which is the same reel design as the ones made by US Reel co. These are small reels with very large - thin spools.
I had thought that when I first saw them on the market that they would work well for distance casting, because there are many fewer "(loops)" in the line for the same distance compared to the typical 1000 sized reel. Another thing that I like about these reels is that they have about a 31 inch line retrieve per turn of the handle. This compares to about 19 inch's retrieve per turn of the handle for a conventional 1000 sized reel.

But the weight of the reel is still very light. The smallest of the Extreme reels - still having the very large spool is only 5.5 Oz's. So the weight is comparable to some of these more common conventional reels.

Thus, with the very large spools on these reels, I tend to use a size 30 stripper on most of my personal spinning rod setups. (Note, that the spool size of these extreme reels is nearly double the size of the spool of the common 1000 sized reels.

Take care and enjoy.

Roger

Great advise about guide sizing above. The most important thing I have found with spinning setups is a lot of test casting with the actual reel, line and lure you are intending to throw. No matter how many micro spinning rods I setup I am always a bit off with my shop setup....

I typically use 3000 size reels with 8lb Flourocarbon. Most of my setups have been 16,8,5,3's to the tip. The Butt and second guide tend to change from time to time for different blanks and reels. I use batson H rings for the micro's, but I like the Alconites for the larger guides...Just like the frame better than the VS.

Scott Sheets
www.smsrods.com

I have a question about the recommendation and a hijack question/topic. :-)

When you recommend starting with a 20 or 16, does that mean you are starting with a "regular" guide and then transitioning into the micro guides? I would like to build a spinning rod that will have a 5' flouro leader attached to braid with a uni to uni knot. The line sizes will be no bigger than 10#. What is the smallest guide size that can accommodate that?

Tony Wilson
Cincinnati Ohio

Thank You Gentlemen, I believe that you have helped me and now I have the information that I need to build my rod.
Thanks Again Chris.