I have been looking into using micro guides for a 70L seeker hercules. This blank is rated 15-30 and I would be using 30 pound braid on a 400 bsv calcutta. As I will have to do a fair amount of casting I am worried about using micro guides because I feel they will rob distance. I have been reading on how to set up a rod with these and I keep seeing things like " acceptable amount of line slap". Now I could be wrong but wasn't line slap the major downfall of the cone of flight system? Meaning to say that line slap would be most likely to inhibit casting distance?
Another question would be can a 30lb braid to 25 mono Albright knot pass through size 5 guides? Any help appreciated! I can't understand this at all!

Mike,
You can ask questions all day long. But YOU as the user of such a rod will have to be the final judge.
So, the only way that you will totally know to YOUR satisfaction is to build such a rod, and use it for a thousand hours catching or not catching 10,000 fish, and then you can report your findings.

But there is a very good way to test the size that you need.

Just take one of your current rod, anda size 5 guide in between two of your current running guides. See if that rod has any issues passing knots. With respect to passing knots, it doesn't matter if it is one guide or many guides. If one guide will bass the knot, a bunch of the same size guides will also pass the knots.

The addition of the single guide would give you the most of the answers that you want to know.

Roger



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2013 10:18AM by roger wilson.

I don't use anything less than a double-footed 10mm guide on a setup as you have described.

I think the term "micro" should be realtive to what the norm used to be for a given class of rod. Neither the rod, nor reel you list, are "big game blue water" items but are well within the area of "able to catch a good sized fish".

If your knots will be outside the guide train when casting and/or fighting a fish you have a lot of leeway. Only you know that answer. Personally I wouldn't go that small unless I was acid wrapping it. Reason would be the number of guides required. I don't tolerate the line touching the blank under maximum load. Even then I doubt I would go that small assuming it is a salt water rig.

Other things to consider will be when and where you are fishing. Threading limp braid, through a number five guide in rough seas, in the dark, isn't going to fly. And then you have to ask yourself what you are gaining given the weight of the blank and the reel.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Wise comments all above

Don't use Micro guides or think they are the guides to use just because they are the - In Thing -

They work - But on certain types of rods certain lines and knots

Like said you are going to have to put some on and Go Out and Test them I think you are going the wrong way with this rod

Bill - willierods.com

A few years ago I warned of the danger and confusion that would be caused by the "micro guide" moniker. I have certainly been vindicated time and time again these past few years as fishermen and rod builders talk about using "micro guides" without any knowledge of what size they are or why a specific size guide should be used for various rods and under specific applications.

Mike,

Build with the smallest lightest guides that will stand up to the task. There are plenty Swampland T1 A-rig blanks in service with 4mm KB guides tossing rigs weighing several ounces and used with 80lb. braid. You do have to keep in mind that in bass fishing, the fight is measured in seconds, the rod won't be pushed to it's limits for extended periods, and the primary risks for guide damage are feet and rod lockers. I don't doubt that one of the heavier framed micros could work with that blank for the right person and application. The guides are plenty strong enough to handle the stresses put on them by the line in a fishing situation, but not always the environment. It is going to depend on the application, whether the guides can pass the needed connections and handle the fishing environment with boat rails and the like. Even in freshwater fishing, I would hesitate to build a rod with small single foot guides for a musky or catfish angler that I don't know very well. Those guys can be hard on stuff when dealing with large fish on a short line, and double foot guides can be necessary.

Tell us a little bit more about the application, and maybe you'll get some more insight.

I would say that it is the inertia added to the rod by using guides that are larger and heavier than necessary resulting in less efficient rods that is the issue with a well set up cone of flight system more than line slap. Granted poorly spaced guides resulting in excessive line slap is a problem, but not as much with a well conceived layout. The differences between casting distance of the various layouts is surprisingly small when executed well.

Joe



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2013 07:05PM by Joe Vanfossen.

Mike, on my 2 Inshore Lites I have TLDBSG size 6 guides on them, they work fine enough. DOn't go smaller than that, and do not use regular size 6 guides. For the fishing you will be doing, there is absolutely no advantage to using anything smaller than a size 8 guide.

At the ICRBE 4 or 5 years back Micro guides took the top 3 winning places in the casting contest, and at least tow of those rods were using 2mm guides.
so I think you are laboring under false assumptions concerning your distance concerns.

But I would not consider size 5 guides as Micro guides. So you might have distance concerns with size 5's

I seldom use leaders and when doing so, use them short enough so as to not worry about knots passing through the guides.
As far as the guides holding up. I've been using Batson's ALPS 3mm guides on flipping sticks and Alabama rigs with braids up to 80 lb test and lure weight up to 6 or 7 oz. with out the first complication or failure from any of the guides.

I don't tolerate line slap on rods either, however "the cone of flight system" is pretty much relegated to spinning rod setups and not bait casters, so your challenge is not going to be line slap, but not having the line touching the blank during the fight, Which I also do not tolerate, that can be eliminated by using a good guide train setup, and is one of the reason for using spiral wraps as Russel said

Roger has given you some good advise about putting a size 5mm guide on one of your other rods to see if it will pass the knots, but I would suggest not remove any of the existing guides and just tape a couple of 5mm guides in between the existing guides to see the results and ignore for the moment the casting distance as the extra weight might effect that a bit.

Roger;
I have a question
What does rods size have to do with passing knots? as you stated in your second paragraph.

Hello Mike.

I would be more worried about what you are fishing for with that rod!
If you are using it for King Mac's, those small guides may not hold up to the abuse a King Mac can put it through.

I use my 70L for Live Baiting King Mackerels off the NC Coast.

Personally I would not try Micro Guides on one, but if you do Please let us know how it holds up.

By the way, what are you using that rod for?

Thanks.

Bob,

New Bern, NC.

Steve,

For whatever it might be worth, the overall first place rod at the Expo casting contest did not utilize guides any smaller than a #8. That one belonged to Chris Linville. Of course it was a spinning rod so it might be unfair to compare it to a casting rod when casting only 3/8th ounce of weight.

.............

Wow! Thanks so much everybody! I really had no intention of opening a can of worms here. I understand a lot of this is contraversial in a way. I appreciate all the practical advise. I don't think that these guides will be the right for this blank however if I was building a largemouth rod I would be taking a longer look at them. I really feel that I just got caught up in the "new thing" and was seeing if it would make sense to apply to the rods I build. BTW, largely due to this forum, I do now spiral wrap everything and will not be looking back!

The best thing you can do is to always use the proper sized guides for any particular application, regardless of what size happens to be or what you or someone else might choose to call those sizes.

..................

If you have enought guides on hand all you need do is put on smaller and smaller guides till it does not cast or work well Then go back up in size till you get a good performing rod

Bill - willierods.com

Tom
Thank you for bringing that up.
Sorry for not clarifying rod types/categories
I was referring to the bait casters

Mr. Colby there is a woman named Silvia Davis that has offered $10,000 to you or whoever can put you face to face with her for some reason.

I have been face to face with her and she is not going to be paying you, me or anybody else $1 much less $10,000. I made a comment to her at the 2010 ICRBE about her Diamond II not being the same as the original and that I knew for a fact that it was repackaged Envirotex. She did not like that comment and since that time has been doing her best to hound me. She even managed to somehow get my wife's cell phone number and call in the middle of the night with a story about how I was harassing and sending sexually suggestive E-mails to her. My wife did not fall for it. Since then I have learned that she's done this to a few other rod builders as well.

The first thing that little girl needs to learn is that I do not answer to her. She is playing a silly childish game and needs to get a life, which is exactly what I told her when I called her just after all this nonsense began. She is not the queen of the world as she seems to think. She's a nutcase and anyone with half a brain that spends more than two minutes talking to her will realize this.

Wow that's crazy! What's envirotex? I could afford sic micros with 10,000 dollars!

[eti-usa.com]

At least two common rod building thread epoxies are repackaged from this. Don't ask me how I know.