with a level wind reel, on a spiral wrap, will it be necessary to off set the butt guide?

no

offset?
maybe/maybe not

On bass rods, I always offset mine a few degrees in the direction of the spiral. and always spiral towards the handle side

On some salt water rods with wide spooled reels and no line guides, sometimes it is beneficial to offset in the direction opposite of the spiral. So the thumb of the hand that holds the rod can push the line to the opposite side of the spool, while the offset guide naturally brings it back o the other end
If you are interested; email me and I will send you the recipe I use for spiral wraps

If you're pulling hard running crankbaits, you may find the line to stack heavy to one side of the spool. If that turns out to be the case, you want to offset the butt guide away from the side you spiral to in order that the line come onto the spool from an exact 0 degrees.

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This reel and rod is primarily is going to used for pitching and maybe some casting with like 3/8 to ounce lures. would i need to offset because o this?

Not unless during your testing you find the line stacks heavy to one side of the reel.

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How will it stack to one side with a levelwind?

Been using an offset stripper guide setup for many years, on every spiraled wrapped bass rod I've built regardless of the technique.

Including deep diving hard pulling crank baits and have personally never witnessed the stripper guide's ability to override the reel's line guide when it comes to distributing the line across the face of the spool.

The only time I've seen line stack up on one side of a spool, has been the times when I leave my thumb on the spool while pitching. The cause being my thumb preventing the line from freely moving back and forth with the line guide, and having nothing to do with the stripper guide.
This is easily corrected by casting and reeling back in with out my thumb on the spool.

It may have been a problem in the past with the older wider reels but not any thing I've seen.

Because a bit of side pressure causes the level wind mechanism to very briefly hesitate on the side of the spiral. That's all it takes to make line stack heavy on that side. This is the very reason that the Forhan type Revolver spiral requires the butt guide to offset to the side opposite the spiral. It doesn't happen with all reels nor with all lures. But it does happen with some. This is why folks should test things for themselves first, and do whatever is necessary to stem such situations from happening.

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I have recently changed to the NZ Spiral wrap and I am getting great results with that!! You are correct, people need to try the one that works for them best and roll with it!!

NZ????? Can you describe that one?

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2010 08:55PM by Mike Barkley.

0,0,45, 135, and the rest at 180.

By having the first 2 guides on the 0 axis, it prevents line from gathering at the sides of the reel.

Lorenzo,
With every spiral wrapped rod that I have used - when testing with a dozen different reels, I have found that I get line stacking on one side of the reel - unless I offset the first guide 5-10 degrees, depending on the rod.

The line stacking doesn't happen on the cast, it only happens on the relatively limp line retreive.

The easy way to check for it, is to simply put your reel of choice in the reel seat with the guides taped into their initial temporary postion.

Pull about 200 feet of line off the reel and let lay on the floor in front of the rod.

Then, just put slight tension on the line - from in front of the tip and retreive the line. See if the line stacks uniformly on the reel, or if it stacks to one side or the other. If so, change the angular orientation of the first guide until it no longer stacks non uniformly on the reel. Note, you change the orientation on the first guide, you may also find that you get a better line flow by also tweaking the 2nd guide a few degrees as well.

You may be able to use a 0 degree setup on the first guide with your particular rod and reel and the rest of the guides. But if not, just tweak the angular orientation of the guide or guides as necessary to get uniform line stacking on the reel.

Take care
Roger

So there you have it Lorenzo;

Tom’s experience; has it happening with hard pulling baits.

Mine is; not having it happen at all
And
Roger’s; having it happen on limp line retrieves.

I would say the best advice you’ve received yet; is to test things out for yourself and decide which setup works best for you. Based on the experiences you perceive.

But then our experiences may have something to do with the different setups we use as well.

Kevin has a nice set up there. In fact, you could put the second 0 degree guide just an inch past the first one and it would have the same effect.

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Thanks, Kevin. I like it! Just Curious though, what does NZ stand for?

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

New Zealand.......... Its also called the Antacid wrap. I didn't have anything to do with the design of it. The whacky Kiwi's down under deserve all the credit.