Received a mass email survey today from a production company...

"I need your opinion on whether micro guides are going to become the standard for your fishing rods. Would you please let me hear your voice on this by answering a few questions so that I can build you exactly what you want in a rod? It will only take a two minutes."

The questions go on to ask how you feel about micro rods, tangle free guides, where rods are assembled,which lines should offer more micro rods, etc

Interesting.

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But nothing about when they are appropriate or exactly size guide they are referring to as a "micro."

Mass market appeal is what they are attempting to determine, not performance or function.

...........

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
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> But nothing about when they are appropriate or
> exactly size guide they are referring to as a
> "micro."
>
> Mass market appeal is what they are attempting to
> determine, not performance or function.
>
> ...........


Being new to building. when would micros not be desired? I've built 2 spinning and 1 casting, so still learning.

In freezing conditions and when your line/leader knots won't pass through.

Andrew Metzger Wrote:
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> In freezing conditions and when your line/leader
> knots won't pass through.

AND when weeds, etc. will collect and cause issues. Duck weed in Florida is the devil's work ... it is NOT compatible with micro guides.

When they're too small. There is a proper sized guide for each application. Sometimes a micro type guide would be the proper size, other times they wouldn't be.

..........

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
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> When they're too small. There is a proper sized
> guide for each application. Sometimes a micro type
> guide would be the proper size, other times they
> wouldn't be.
>
> ..........


Gotta love answers like that...

Jeremy if you will search micro guides with it set on all dates you will run across "M&M's" in several volumes. There you will find all the micro info your brain can handle. Hope that helps

Tom is probably right about the survey. It's a smart step I suppose. I'd want to know what my customers wanted too.

When I was fishing last week, with lots of cotton from cotton wood trees floating on the water. About every other cast, I would have to scrape big balls of cotton wood fibers off of the line. Most of these balls would never have fit through micros.

Roger

Roger- I have fished micros on bass rods since 2008. You are right. The cotton does not fit through the micros. That's good. It keeps that crap out of the reel. I don't know what duck weed is, but if it's anything like the green, mossy crap we get here in some lakes it clings to everything. It doesn't stop line from going through a micro though. All cottonwood and weeds blow out on the next cast. I have never had it shut me down.

Chuck

_________________________________________
"Angling is extremely time consuming.
That's sort of the whole point." - Thomas McGuane

Chuck,
I've had the cottonwood shut down my micro rods quite a few times. It tends to clog in the tip or first guide after depending on the size of the tip..drives me nuts. this is with mono..

Scott Sheets
www.smsrods.com

Scott,
I hear your pain.
A person can fish with junk on the water as long as you can reel in the line. If the reel happens to get a bunch of junk in it due to the stuff in the water, you can keep fishing and every hour or so, strip off the line and clean up the junk. But if you are in the midst of a hot bite, it is prfetty counterproductive to have to stop 1/2 way through every retreive to strip junk off of the line.
Great guide setup otherwise.

Be safe
Roger

I don't think anyone mentioned directly (Tom did indirectly) the biggest issue with small guides, and that is passing knots as in braid to mono/flouro knots. I personally would not use mono on any rod on which I might need to use a leader knot . I love micros, and have had no trouble with the thick cottonwood we have around here, but knots are a big issue. Even if the knot is smaller than the ID of the guide, they may not pass smoothly.

how far from the tip is your knot?

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I have built 2 rods useing micro guides . I will charge double . I find them hard to keep ln line when wraping, wrap tight can't move to line up, wrap loose they, try to move they come off . I tryed glue that was a mess. I used ruber tubing that took to much time to get guides in line. I like the way the finished rod worked , got longer casts with less power in the cast..