I have not built any rods in 5 or so years and have lost all my bookmarks and past notes due to a dead hard drive. I'm planning to build myself a fly rod for bone fishing in the tropics. I have a Sage Xi2 8 wt on order, while waiting, I am debating both the guide and the reel seat options. Search results have turned up a lot of interesting bits but not the answers I'm looking for. This will be primarily a wadding rod where we're on the flats from 4 - 8 hours, think light, and expect the regularly excessive wind in the spring, hopefully absent in the summer.

Guides - what sort of performance difference is there between snake guides (single or double foot) and ceramic insert guides in terms of casting ease, distance, feel, wind load (this is not during casting but when just holding the rod and the wind want to blow it out of your hand), or any other aspect that you may have noted when casting? I am not particularly interested in the pros & cons of the different materials, I understand this and can make the trade off myself.

Reel seat - aluminum reel seats have proven themselves but I see some makers are using graphite, besides price and I assume weight, are there any advantages or benefits of using graphite?

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Tony

I fish for Bone fish at Christmas Island with and 8wt Sage on which I have single foot ceramic guides and an aluminum, reel seat. It has worked and held up very well. Don't know that either makes any difference when the wind blows!

Using single foot guides will help reduce weight due to half the number of wraps. I find that casting is close to the same with either guide set up.

I don't think the guide type is going to affect how the wind attempts to "blow it out of your hand." Ceramics are quiet and smooth and will extend the life of your fly line. A good compromise are the Pacific Bay Minima guides which have a hard chrome plating and are among the very lightest guides ever made. They're sort of hard to come by right now, with Pacific Bay being backordered on some sizes for weeks. Of course, snake guides have worked for decades and will do so for many more.

The graphite/nylon seats have proven to be about the top when it comes to a lightweight seat which never rusts nor jams and which hold a reel more securely than about anything else.

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I would also suggest look at the American Tackle Titanium guides Titans and ring lock.

Bill - willierods.com

Tangles in your line always seem to happen just as that first bonefish run occurs. Double foot snake guides are the most forgiving of small tangles. A couple of weeks ago my fishing buddy got a kink in his line and had a bone literally rip two single foot snake guides off his rod before his leader parted.

The extra two or three feet casting distance you MIGHT gain with ceramics, the extra sixteenth of an ounce you MIGHT save with single foot guides, the extra few fishing trips you MIGHT get out of your line with creamics - these doubtful benefits will disappear when inevitably a kink in your running line results in a lost bonefish - and you realize that kink might have passed through double foot snake guides

Tony,
I agree with Phil. For SW use the double foot titanium guides. Stronger and easier on the fly line under hard runs and big fights.

Eugene Moore

Fellows,

Thank you for your comments.

Phil & Eugene - I particularly appreciate your point on the double footed snake guides as being more forgiving of line tangles, that was not something that I had given consideration. This may in part be a function of me not having caught any fish last trip, I spent the week fighting the wind.

Other Phil & Bill - After reading some of the recent postings, I was thinking of using the Ti lock rings, hum, I'll think on it a while. Either way, it will be titanium of some form.

Tom - I hear you sneering at me and my 'wind blown rod', that's ok, I would have thought the same until I had to endure it back in April. We delayed our March trip to Marsh Harbour until April when all of the March winds would have blown through (the 'goes out like a lamb part'). Naturally, the day we get there it starts blowing 25+ and last for 4 days. It was just one more thing to irritate me; as if my casting into the wind was not enough!

We're going back at the end of June so the wind should not be an issue. I'm not sure I will be able to get the new rod build but I just received an Albright GPX 7/8 reel to go with the new rod. That will at least make the trip and after using, I'll post comments.

Tony

Try up-lining the rod for faster line speed . This should help with cutting though the wind.

Bill - willierods.com