Hello All,

I am about to start work on a 80-130 bent butt rod. The intended use is for drifting large live bait for Bluefin Tuna.....large/mediums....under 72 inches from a small, 24ft, boat. Rod will be bent butt and fish will be fought in a swivel rod holder....not on stand up gear. The blank I am using a Seeker CTSF63XXXH....an Aftco #4 bent butt (storabutt) paired with a Penn 80VISW....my question is this:

I originally ordered a set of 5 Winthrop X Calibur 130 wind on roller guides...thinking that I would only be placing guides on the top 4 or 4.5 ft of the blank after attaching the ferrule and placing the foregrip. Then I started thinking...(probably over thinking) and ordered one more #3 Winthrop....to be safe. Well.....the components are arriving today and I want to get this rod in action ASAP....the last guide is on back order for a few weeks.

Do you guys think I am ok with just the 5 guides? Any thoughts on guide placement? I will of course be doing a static test.

All opinions welcome and thanks for your time.

Joe

The traditional offshore trolling rod, which generally top out at about 7 feet in length overall, utilize 5 guides plus a tiptop. These are typically very moderate in action and therefore do not require a great number of guides to evenly distribute the stress.

I have not used that particular blank but assuming it is anything other than a very fast action blank, 5 guides plus tiptop should be sufficient. Using 6 won't hurt it, but may be unnecessary.

Now if the blank leans towards a faster action, as many stand-up style blanks do, a 6th guide may not be a bad idea. I think you're going to have to mock the rod up and flex it (this is a bit difficult with such a heavy-powerful blank, but can be done with the help from a friend). In other words, do the standard stress distribution test on the rod and see how many guides it actually needs. If you can't get a nice line arc with 5, then you're just going to have to wait on that 6th guide.

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The Xcalibur 130 guides will be way too large for that blank….
The 80 class will be much better, but not sure on the #3 guides being to big towards the tip…
The 30 class has clearance that will work…..

Andrew McDermott Wrote:
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> The Xcalibur 130 guides will be way too large for
> that blank….
> The 80 class will be much better, but not sure on
> the #3 guides being to big towards the tip…
> The 30 class has clearance that will work…..

Thanks Andrew but I am very comfortable with those guides on that blank.....the #3's fit nicely towards the tip with an underwrap.