Peter

I am glad you explained short leader. I don't know if it is just a Lung Eye Land thing or not but for most people who use a 11' pole (not a 9ft. rod) with a spinning reel usually only have a two to four ft. leader and fish with lures. Go to Montauk and try to fish with a conventional reel and bait and you will find yourself beaten and buried along the ocean pkwy. If you go American Tackle site you will see they only show spacing charts for 6' to 7.5ft. rods. I believe there is a good reason for that and that the suggested spacing is to help the average rod builder not the experts.

For this reason I think you might be better off going with 27X or the Fuji concept guide system. Also the feet on small guides would make a noob like me very nervous on wrapping a rod unless you are only going to fish the beach. But if you are going to fish inlets, sides of bridges, rocks and sod banks like I did I would want a larger surface area to hold my guides onto the rod with a Forhan wrap. Especially if I just walked a mile or two to my 'spot' only to trip over something and hurt a guide instead of just me.

Up there in the "Noreast" I would show a little respect to Capt. Neil's forum you could have a new BFF but I personally have never conversed with him since I don't live there anymore.

Fuji makes KR belly guides. They have longer feet for more strength in the midsection of the rod. I will mainly be fishing the open beach with this and I have O Sea D about my fishing rods so tripping or the car door knocking my guides loose is not a concern. I'm only interested in rod performance with this one. I am leaning toward trying this since my 9 foot casts so well. Knots passing through and reel angle or height away from the rod are valid concerns but not an issue with my use of this rod. Someone mentioned seaweed and such things and that can happen at any given time however that would still be an issue with my 9 footer but after 1 year of fishing it it hasn't occured. I can use a little larger midsection and runners on this to help with that a little. I'm hoping to find someone who has tried this before. I can't believe I'm that cutting edge (or stupid haha) that I'd be the first to do this.

Peter a 9 ft rod in the gulf( where i now mostly fish) is not the same as a 9 ft rod on almost any other place.

A 9 ft for the gulf can be built out at under 6 maybe 7 oz and still throw 3 or 4 oz bait and weight or lure and throw it far ( the MHX blanks will do this).

On that type of build, lighter guides can and do offer advantages.

But typically that would have maximum 16# momoi on the beach or 17# big game near piers on it, maybe 20 or 30# braid with a topshot of floro. A 4000 to 6000 reel
. You would take on King mackrel, big jacks, bull reds rays and small sharks with it.
Good day you could take a cobia on it.
You are not dealing with currents, rocks (except for pilings) or snags.
I fish heavier/toughe rbuilt rigs for carp or tailwater striper/flatheads.

You need to build for where you fish.