Hello,

I blew the dust off an old 10’ Penn surf rod to use at the beach in a couple of weeks and I got the wild idea to replace the guides, after this trip of course. The specs say the rod’s rated for 2 to 5oz lures and 20 to 30lbs line. I’m wondering if anyone has built an equivalent rod using KL-H guides. Currently the rod has double foot guides from the stripper to the last runner. I’m not using the rod for trophy hunting or anything just the typical Florida beach fish so I was thinking it would not matter much if I used single food guides.

Reduction train would be KL25H, KL12H, KL8M, KL7L... then I’m thinking KB7’s to the tip.

Any issues or better ideas that can be brought to light would be appreciated.

My last surf rod build on a 10'6 CTS I went with a KL25H , KL12H to a 5.5M then KB 5's - KT 5's and it works amazingly well but that's only because I use 10 -14 pound braid on it exclusively . Keep in mind that those KR concept single foot's are not robust guides and care will be needed to make sure they don't get banged around especially on a surf rod. Fuji clearly did not have surf rod builds in mind when they designed and released the KR concept single foots but people have used them on their builds . The RV 25 double foot is what Fuji refers to as it's double foot KR concept guide and it is a superb butt guide for surf rod builds but expensive.

As long as you're not careless with your usage the KL25H single foot's work well as a butt guide when using lighter braids because it has excellent height and the ring size is ideal for braids up to 20 pounds but 30 pound and above braids I choose something else for durability reasons.

I have also found that when using light braids the spinning reel choice including spool diameter etc... isn't nearly as big a factor as when going heaver especially with mono instead of braid . If fishing mono the reel and spool diameter becomes a major factor and the guide sizes and spacing becomes a lot more critical.

I suspect the functional difference between monofilament line and gelspun braid is greater than the difference between monofilament and cuttyhunk braid. When you build a spinning rod for someone who plans to use gelspun for casting what if any modifications do you make to the guide train?

Michael Tarr Wrote:
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>
> Reduction train would be KL25H, KL12H, KL8M,
> KL7L... then I’m thinking KB7’s to the tip.
>
> Any issues or better ideas that can be brought to
> light would be appreciated.


Will be a superb set up, if you can't find KB7's, KT7's will be just fine