I saw a completed rod in the tackle shop the other day that appeared, at first glance, to have no guides. My first thought was that it was another through-the-blank design which generally has been a failure due to too much line friction in actual use, not to mention the difficulty threading line through.

It was a white blank with white wraps, trigger-grip split handle and split grips. Upon closer inspection there was a row of tiny black dots the length of the rod, which turned out to be tiny rings about 1/8" diameter. It was a 7' rod with at least a dozen of these guides.

Reading the hang-tag on the handle stated that it used 'nano' guides and had a picture showing 12 guides on the face of a penny. I've since located them in my catalogs where I had previously glanced at without realizing just how tiny they are.

I've always been a believer in using more guides than the length of the blank to distribute the load and keep the line off the blank and appreciate the advantage of using the lightest guides possible. However the low height of these guides just seems to invite more line contact with the blank, as well as more friction through the small rings size. This was a casting rod so the guides would be on top of the blank, making the situation worse IMO.

So, does anyone here have any actual experience with nano guides that can comment on the advantages over more conventional styles?

Do a search on "micro guides" and you will find all the information that you need. This isn't anything new, you just found a fresh marketing term.

Jim,
Tiny and low guides should really have no effect on casting distance, since for most casts after the bait is released, the blank is virtually straight and the line runs straight down the rod.

When retreiving or catching a fish, what difference does it make if the line rubs or goes under the rod. No difference, except that it might scuff the rod finish a bit.

Be safe

Some day soon I expect an angler will look a a rod and say, "Midget guides? Oh, yeah. They were real popular back in the early 'teens."

I have built 3 casters (2 conventional 1 acid) and 2 spinning with the nano micros and I like them. Two of the casters were for customer who used them for bass fishing and he loved the accuracy and weight reduction they provided. I built 1 of the spinners for my son for bass/walleye, I just got back from a Florida trip where I had a chance to test this rod out on snook reds and jacks. The rod worked flawlessly and I easily out cast my fishing buddy in both distance and accuracy. Partly due to the nano guides and I think partly due to the berkley nano fill line. Even our guide couldn't believe how effortlessly I could cast the baits, and how light the overall weight of the combo was.

Hi Chad,

I to have used #3 micros for casting rods and love them. However I have never tried them on a spinning rod yet. Do you mind sharing how you set up the spinning rod? If you don't want to post it maybe you can email me?

Thank You,

Chris Tulk

Chris,
I bought them as a set from mud-hole BNMG-13S the kit consist of

BNMG-2 (x10)
BF3XG-4 (x1)
BM3XG-8 (x1)
BM3XG-20 (x1)
BHK-S (x1) small black hook keeper

I only used 6 of the size 2 on this particular blank XSB783 6'6" with a BFM3XT-3 micro tip
Guide dimensions from the tip are 3 3/4 , 6 3/4 , 9 1/2 , 12 1/2 , 16 1/2 , 21 3/8 , 27 1/2 , 35 , 44 1/4

I have used the size #1's on a caster, it had a #3 stripper a #2 and the running guides were all #1. The #3 stripper was too small in my opinion, but the customer wanted the look of an almost bare blank, and was not concerned about distance, but wanted accuracy, light weight and the look. He used the rod last month for bass in Florida and said it performed exactly as he wanted.

I happened to browse another tackle shop the other day and saw a few more rods with these tiny guides. Not many though, maybe only 1% of all the rods on the racks. Apparently it's still not too popular around here, at least in factory rods.

Whipping the empty rod doesn't even start to flex the blank, but can't tell if it's the blank stiffness or the guide weight.

While browsing the line selection, I noticed that some of them mentioned nano guides as an advantage. These were some of the $20 per small spool lines. Are the nano guides intended to be used with specific types of line? The samples on the package felt slipperier and much smaller diameter than mono.

One of the reasons you cannot flex the rod with "whipping" is that the guides are so light. They result in a more sensitive rod due to their light weight. They cause no more line friction than larger guides. In fact, most find that when properly set up they will cast farther than larger guides due to the better line control. The theory is that the line is restricted to an almost straight, very tiny diameter cylinder through the air resulting in less wind resistance. Casting effort is thought to be less due to the lighter weight of the rod. Setting up a spinning rod is no different than setting up rods with conventional guides, just sub the micros for the running guides of normal size, like 6's. The limiting factors on micros is that you have to be careful with line to line knots. I don't even try to run knots through them, although some builders do. Also, some have reported failures in the mid-rod area which caused Fuji and I believe Amtak to offer a heavier duty micro for mid-rod positions, like the first running guide or two on spinning rods. Setting up a casting rod is more controversial than spinning, with some thinking you can go micros all the way with others using larger guides for the first two. The Amtak Microwave casting setup is an example, and Fuji does a similar thing. See the Fuji Anglers' Resource site for an explanation. As previously stated, line contact with the rod is not an issue while casting, and I doubt that even with the rod flexed that scuffing of the blank will not be a problem. Many use an extra guide or two on casting rods just because they don't like the idea of line contact, but there are many builders who just use the number of guides necessary for proper stress distribution and actually allow the line to go below the blank when the blank is flexed.

Do the search recommended and you'll find a lot of info, lots of opinions.

I understand that lightness is usually good. However, I have several rods with 'normal' guides that also don't flex with whipping, thus my comment.

I've been reading up at the sources recommended and I get the concept of narrowing the line path quickly.

The rods I'm talking about use all nano guides from the stripper to the tip, holding the line not more than 1/16" above the rod unflexed. Just can't accept that line friction on the rod isn't an issue. If they were taller it would make sense, but then I guess they'd be too fragile. As cheap as they are maybe I'll buy a set and try it on an old rod.

I didn't see anything regarding if this design assumes they will be used with the newer lines, that is, not monofilament. The advertising claims they are thinner and slipperier.