I have heard Stripper , Collector and Butt guide over the years .

I was looking for that pic with the minima guides right on top of each other but I can't seem to locate it now . I was also looking for a few fly rod builds using the Microwave setup but there seems to be no reviews whatsoever about how they perform on fly rods. In the end line type and diameter has the biggest impact on casting distance with spinning reels but most know that already .

Chris,

Here you go: [www.rodbuilding.org]

...........

Tom that is way cool and ahead of its time apparently. Was this an idea you came up with on your own or from your talks with Doug Hannon?

I’ve heard a couple of first hand reports from people who had experiences with Doug Hannon. He does seem to have been one of the good guys of the industry. I always liked that he was such an avid and successful fisherman with larger interests than the tournament circuits. Wherever an interested person believes that he fits into the progression of modernizing spinning rod guide trains, he certainly played an important role. I prefer the later systems that are simpler, but as effective. However, they might not even exist without Doug’s work. Then, there is his weedless prop contribution.

I did this on my own when the Mimima guides came out in the various heights. It allowed stacking smaller guides in the center of larger guides, something that no other frame series would allow. It was from there that I heard from Doug and learned about his experiments over the years with similar, his patents and attempts to have the MicroWave system manufactured and marketed. American Tackle saw the value of his innovation and have done rather well with it I'd say.

...........

Kendall Cikanek Wrote:

> However, they might not even exist
> without Doug’s work. Then, there is his weedless
> prop contribution.


The term weedless confers a foregone conclusion of pure one-sidedness. As if because a prop is declared "weedless" then it does something no other prop can do because it is given such a claim for a title.

However, in central Florida this has not been my experience. I have 2 primary trolling motors for fishing. One is a 50lb Minn Kota with weedless prop, and the other is a MotorGuide 71lb motor with a prop identical to the one shown in his "weedless" prop patents.

Just last weekend I was forced by overcrowding of motorized lakes and boat ramps with no parking, I was forced to go to a no-motor lake if I wanted to fish in town on the weekend. So I hit lake Baldwin in Orlando with my 71lb trolling motor with a prop on it identical to the patent for a weedless prop. I had to stop fishing more than a dozen time to clean weeds off my prop just so I could use it.

Point is, weedless is a misnomer. A false conclusion based on a nice nifty useful idea, but reality proves to me that the term weedless is meaningless in central Florida. And it does not matter what brand or who invented it. I have never found a weedless prop to do what it is claimed to do. They all wrap weeds around them right here in central Florida.

Please notice in the following image of one of the times I had to stop fishing so I could clean my weedless prop of weeds. And notice where on the prop the collection of weeds and wrapping of weeds is occurring. The weeds are caught by the "weedless" shape of the prop blades and wrapped around the prop where the blades are, and this is the whole basis of his weedless prop design. A reshaping of the blades in an attempt to create a shape that does NOT grab weeds. It does not work 100%. So it can not be weedless. It isn't.

Doug Hannon was from Florida. He lived here. He should have known his weedless idea was not so weedless! Makes no sense to me, but if it can be sold, then it starts to make sense. From my personal experience with weedless props, there is no such thing. They all grab weeds and wrap them up around the prop. I have yet to find not one single weedless prop that does what it claims. Not one.

I am well aware of the weed problem in many Florida lakes. And as such I only operate the trolling motor blades in the forward motion because of their so called weedless design is only operable in that one direction. Reverse a motor and those same blades literally become weed grabbing "hooks" for instant hangups. So my weed accumulations come from operating the so called weedless prop in the direction of motion that they are claimed to be weedless. And central Florida has certainly proven they are not weedless or anything close.

I may have to resort to a prop guard if I am to find any solution to this problem. But if I went that route and still have weeds getting snagged and wrapped up, I will have a harder time removing them with a prop guard in place. Bottom line, in my opinion there is no such thing as a weedless prop. Here's one now...



Apparently I am not the only person in Florida getting tangled up on a regular basis using so called "weedless" props: The following comment is about a prop guard...

[www.amazon.com]


...don't expect it to be the answer to your prayers. I have 2 kayaks and a Jon Boat on the edge of a Marsh preserve in Palm Beach County, Florida. it is literally a place where a 'River Runs Through It.' In this case, the Loxahatchee. As it winds its way from Lake Okeechobee in mid-state to the Atlantic, the Loxahatchee feeds many swamps and beautiful wetlands. The problem is the normal vegetation like water Lillies, are now no problem at all... the 'cage' pushes those 'native' plants aside and prevents the prop from fouling. HOWEVER, there is this other kind of vegetation that is due to the fertilizer runoff—mostly golf courses where I am. That stuff, if not sprayed by the Florida Water Authority regularly, quickly becomes impassable—even paddling a kayak! It floats only an inch below the surface so it's not difficult to see and avoid—it's like glue. So although inexpensive and certainly worth the money and effort to attach to your trolling motor, it's not a cure all for motoring in shallow wetlands! Be warned unless you want to spend your time bent over the boat transom picking out weeds that have wrapped around the prop shaft and caused your Jon Boat to be dead in the water. I've fallen in doing such acrobatics more times than I care to admit.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2021 11:19AM by Kent Griffith.

I do not understand what trolling motor props have to do with rod building. And trying to paint Doug Hannon as some sort of fraud flies in the face of his accomplishments and reputation in bass fishing over the past forty years. The topic was about the MicroWave guides and yes, they work as advertised, at least on the spinning models.

Not trying to paint him as a fraud.

I was not the one who brought up trolling motor claims for this man.

I did dig up the patents, but what I am saying is it is easy to throw claims around without verification, yet when such claims are examined from a factual point of view we find that 1) he is not a sole inventor, but a co-inventor of this idea and no one else has bothered to include this information or 2) the names of the co-inventors. All credit is throw to one name. I decided to check it out.

I also pointed out and rightly so, that a so called weedless prop is in fact not totally weedless. Less weeds than maybe more weeds, but certainly NOT completely weedless as is claimed.

Bottom line is the claims posted by others are not bearing out in the real world when examined more carefully. And I still have not found anywhere close to 20 patents either. About half that so far under at least 3 or 4 variations of his legal name which is kind of odd to say the least.

Now either we deal with factual truthful information or rely on B S as gospel, and I am not one to do that. I try and post the facts and you can make your own conclusions. This thread is a learning experience for me. I've learned a great deal more than I have posted and it seems that the facts are ruffling feathers when they should not.

I'm still working on getting independent verification of the microwave guide and would like to acquire some real world empirical data on them that is not sourced from those who sell it. I want it from outside unbiased neutral third parties. Nothing wrong with that at all. Let the truth shed light on it all so we can all gain from it if possible.

I also want the original patent compared to the in production product to see how closely related or not they really are, or if the in production models even adhere to the design criteria of the original patent. To me it would infinitely interesting to find out the truth of it all once and for all time rather than rely on endless opinions on it.

A custom rod building forum should be a place for factual information and I am doing my part to help make it so.

So who are the co-inventors? Why did they not come forward? The only fact here is that you misinterpreted a screen shot from a video where a situation was created to purposely show how the Microwave guide system easily deals with a spinning reel tangle or birdsnest. You went on for several paragraphs about how the combination of ring sizes that close together had caused the the overshoot. You were wrong. The butt guide did not cause the overshoot. The tangle was created on purpose. And line overshoot does not happen on the Microwave guides during normal fishing and casting.

I am wrong, wrong, wrong... based on what? An opinion?

I have watched slow motion video of both MW and standard guides systems. So far I have seen only one with an overshoot issue.

But you claim I am wrong, wrong, wrong by me laying any blame on the MW guide, and yet you have not produced one shred of evidence to back up your opinion it isn't to bear any blame.

This type of thing is what makes forum discussion lively.

Yes you are 100% wrong. The only Microwave video you watched is the one where they purposely created a situation to create a line overshoot and even said so in the video title. ANY guide system will do the same thing at the first guide in that situation. Why didn't you watch all the other videos of the MW guides in normal use where the line does not overshoot the butt guide? It's like you watched a video of GM doing safety testing of their cars during head-on impacts and concluded that GM automobiles all run into walls.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2021 06:49PM by Mike Ballard.