Hi Y'all!

I have read quite a bit of your work here and am always impressed. I reconize some of your names form other sites also. Glad to be here.

I have a thread running on SOL about this but I thought I would throw it out here also and get some of your oppions.

I am building a 2 piece 9' surf spinning rod. SU1087F-2-MHX 9'0" 2 12 - 25 1 - 4 Fast Med 3.71 .668 6.5 .

This has been my first build and started out with SV 30 working down to a SV 8 in a concept build. After playing around with it quite a while I was able to get Fireline to cast a 2 oz lead spoon to 85 yards. I ordered a full set of NM guides to play around with them intending to try the 16 as a stripper. Just for kick I played around with the 12, 10, and 8 as strippers. The stripper that preformed best overall with multiple lines was the 10 set at 26.1" I am using a size 6 SV as a reduction guide and a 5.5 LDB as a choke and runners to a tip top size 6. This thing is sooooo lite it is increadible.

I used 14 lb fireline and 20 lb 832 for the main test lines as the actual size of these lines are nearly identical. I also tried slick 8 in 15 lb with simular results.

The best cast I was able to make with these were 119 yards with a 10 mph wind and 100 yards into the wind. These distances were measured on a football field. The fireline preformed best overall with size 10 stripper. It was very consistant with all cast being between 115 and 119 where the other were more erratic in distance.

Has anyone else fooled around with a stripper this small and did you see simular results?

Thanks for any input.

8fishermen

as long as it accomodates any leader knots then go as small as possible. it sounds like you have the best setup for what you are doing with that rod. go with it

Thanks,

No knots will be passing through these. I don't normally use leaders and if I do it is a swivel with a short piece of mono.

Greg, i got one of those blanks to play with last year around March (thanks Todd).
Several buddies of mine bought them since they seen or casted mine and i wrapped them up for them the same as mine.
Its a great blank: I got myself another one last week at the expo.
Braid is so limp you can do that as it wil go where you want it to down the guides with less problems than mono( if you ignore wind knots).
But i also have to use mono so i went another route with my guides.

Best distances i get is with a 30mm wavespin at 20 inches from the face of the reel.
Then a Minima 4 M style of 8mm( it works better than the guide they supply) and running 5mm fly minima 4's to the top .
First running guide set at 27X and that 8mm minima match is dead center from small ring in microwave to 1st runner.
The cool thing is i get the same result with Momoi 17 transition mono line as i do with braid.
That sort of does what your setup does: chokes it all down fast via a small ring. But in a mono friendly way.

I throw 3 oz with it on 20# Power Pro with 20 ft shock leader and can get from the car park at perdido pass(by that new restaurant built of crates) onto the sand bar on the other side may last year.
Not sure distance(hard to measure on water) but if you know the place you may just be trying that setup on that blank: its very far.
2 oz i am still in the 110 plus yards range.

If you are into playing around, try it.

Hey Lou,

Thank you for your detailed reply.

You are the first person I have run across with any experence on this blank. You seem to like this blank very much. How does it compare to others you have tried? The way I ended up with one is I called mudhole and told them I was looking for a lite blank that would have a sweet spot around 2 oz and this is what they sent me. So far I love it.

I will be ordering a set of mircoway guides to try. Billy V recommended them last week. I will try to order them this week.

I have not tried to throw anything over 2 oz so far. I will be using this for freshwater spillway fishing so I dont throw a lot of heavy baits. I will give it a try though. I am a serious tinkerier.

Hey Lou,

Thank you for your detailed reply.

You are the first person I have run across with any experence on this blank. You seem to like this blank very much. How does it compare to others you have tried? The way I ended up with one is I called mudhole and told them I was looking for a lite blank that would have a sweet spot around 2 oz and this is what they sent me. So far I love it.

I will be ordering a set of mircoway guides to try. Billy V recommended them last week. I will try to order them this week.

I have not tried to throw anything over 2 oz so far. I will be using this for freshwater spillway fishing so I dont throw a lot of heavy baits. I will give it a try though. I am a serious tinkerier.

Greg,
I got this blank from Todd Vivian at mudhole last year to test.
I bought the 1085 this year at the expo to try out for myself, i was so impressed with the 1087.

For this blank get the castaway microwave from swampland, the bigger 30 mm one not the small AmTack sets sold as a pack..
Seriously try the 5 or 6 mm fly minimas they are so light that blank comes alive with them.
You can happily run up to a 6000 reel with it then plus 20# mono.

I like the MHX blank it compares very well to my stretched 8ft Texas made allstars which was my tailwater and pier favorite. I always added about 14 inches to them under the reel seat to make the rod just a tad over 9 ft.
This is more powerful, faster, nice progressive action under load , but still light enough in hand.
Not as good with treble hooks as S glass blanks.
Its just flat out nicer in every way to me than the pac bay 1086 and 1087 up to 2010 models, not tried their newer ones yet.
I have even tried to stretch castaway BB1 and 2,'s plus older Castaway blanks to 9 or 9.5 ft this MHX has worked best for what i want.
I rummage around at the expo looking for older stuff to experiment with simply because so much of what is there on the shelf is just not quite what i like or my clients need.

The MHX will throw 4oz well but is good at 2 oz and comfortable doing it.
I have used it a few time throwing live shad up to the turbines in tailwaters for big blue cats and flatheads and it has stopped those things up to 50lbs no problem even when they are running generators.

Oh and double wrap the guide just in front of the actual microwave, that one seems to take a lot of strain so wrap, finish, wrap again and finish again with something tough like PG.

Lou,

What do you use for handles on this rod? The guys at mudhole seemed to think it was too small for just cork tape but I never touch the handle except the very end when casting. I am thinking of just tape but would love to here what you use.

In the butt section i used cord cross wrapped then covered that with x-flock in red. Front grip was regular foam covered with x-flock in red. Seat is a size 24 channel lock in black/silver trim. Wraps are red with silver trim.
NOT a ninja rod, kind of in your face.
I really need to post pics , just never turn out too well. Flash is too much or background looks bad. Tougher to take photo than build rod.

OK i Just tried twice to upload photos and i cannot see them, thought they were in handles grips etc section. said upload was ok.
Soryr not a great loss, even on my computer they look like what they are, taken with an iphone and propped againts the door.
Your email is hidden so i can't send them that way.
Get hold of me on my email and i will send these to my work,I can maybe respond from there, WIN 8 is not my friend tonight.

I unlocked um Email. Thanks for taking the time to respond again.

Sent a pic.

Lou,

I found the Microwave 30mm at Swampland.

I think I found the Minima 4 Fly guides. CF4CG Minima 4 Fly Guides, TiChrome, is this correct? If so how many of these did you use?

Is this the 8mm transition guide you referred to CM4CG Minima 4 Match Guides, TiChrome?

You set the 30mm at 20" then the choke at 27X? Is that correct? What is the distance to that mark or what reel were you using? I assume you then used a static load to set the rest of the runners.

Thanks for all the help.