Hi All:

Just wondering.... What is the best way to incorporate this?? Does the second #16 guide go 4" in front of the Main #20 stripper or does it go 4" in front of the # 16. Also... What if putting that second striiper puts the next two guides like 2" from one another?

Can anyone enlighten me as to how you properly implement the second stripper to a saltwater Flyrod?

If I am understanding correctly, your second stripper is only 6" away from the butt stripper. With this setup, I do not believe you will see much advantage in having the additional stripper. Only one way to find out though. Tape it on and test it.

To answer your original question...The common practice is to put the extra stripper 10cm in front of the butt stripper, going toward the tip. This is after you have already placed the guides in their optimum position for your particular rod. Some rods it matters, others it does nothing.

Get Don Morton's article in RMaker he explains this technique within the equal angle guide placement article.

Joe,

You add this 'extra' guide to the rod AFTER you've decided where all the other guides should be. Generally, it goes about four inches or so in front of the stripping guide. As I understand it, the purpose is to more quickly tame the the line so it passes through the remaining guides more smoothly.

I've done this on two fly rods so far, a 5 wt. and a 9 wt.. I've found that it helped a good bit on both, even though I was told not to expect too much on the 5 wt.

I'll keep doing it from now on on ALL my flyrods, and suggest it strongly for my customers. It seems to work, and the only drawback, the extra 'weight', is slight and at the point on the rod where it can do the least harm.

Good Luck!

I'm not knowledgeable enough to explain it properly, but as I understand it, the "extra" stripper(s) absorb the sine-wave of the fly line as it goes through the guides. Less "waviness"--or oscillation--equals less friction which equals more distance. Apparently 10cm (approx. 4"), is just the right distance to absorb the waves in the line. For lighter fly rods, some folks suggest that 3.5" actually works better. On my most recent rod, I actually used three strippers, each 4" away from the previous. The difference is amazing. While the rod is a light line weight (4), and moderate action, the extra strippers still give me a fair bit more distance. The biggest difference, though, has to do with the smoothness of casting. Without the extra strippers, the rod had a bit of line slap and "chatter", and I occasionally would throw a tailing loop. With the extra strippers, I can't make a poor cast with the rod--the line just flows so smoothly.

I may be wrong, but I do it different, especially on light rods. I put the second stripper 4" or 10cm up from the first, but then I put the next guide the normal distance from the second stripper. By doing that, when using single foots, I can usually end up with one less guide overall than if I used the normal spacing and inserted the 2nd stripper as and "extra" in between. To me this is fairly important, because each guide must add a certain percentage of drag and weight.

When I cast it, the line seems to come out of the second stripper very straight and smooth, so why not let it run 9 or 10 inches to the next guide or stripper.

Bill may be on to the next progression of this technique. The only drawback I can see is that you'd have to incorporate the additional stripper into your overal guide set-up. But if it works even better...

The way most guys are doing it now - adding it to the existing set-up - you can easily give your customers the option of trying it for a few days and then just removing it without upsetting the overal guide-set if they do not like it. You can also add it to an existing rod without moving any of the other guides.

I am sure as more guys try it and find newer and better ways to incorporate it into their set-ups we'll see more improvements.

...........

While I certainlly agree that adding an additional guide to an existing setup will add performance and is a good option as Tom mentioned for wary customers to try, I do not agree with doing a standard guide placement first, then just add the additional guide 4" after the stripper. I am convinced you will get MUCH better results if you setup the guides with the use of collector guides from the beginning. Any placement of a guide will affect the positioning of the guide prior and after if optimum performance is desired. If starting from a blank, you will find that 2-4 "collector" guides will outperform the simple addition of one 4" after the stipper to a standard setup. Many times a 2nd and third collector about 6 and 9 inches apart will gain even more. I have certainly went back to my previously built rods and added that additional guide about 4", but would never do that if building from scratch. Most often you will get a stripper with 2-4 collector guides getting progressively farther apart that meet up with progressively distancing guides coming from the tip. (make sense?) Other words, after placing stripper and collectors, start at the tip and start placing "as usual" in a progressively distancing manner til these "running" guides meet up with the "collector" guides. You will have a progressive lengthing of spacing between guides until you come to that meeting point, then you will get a progressive shortening distance between the collectors (all this is talking about goin from tip to butt). I hope all this made sense. Don't want to offend any earlier posters, but just adding that one guide 4" after the stripper to a standard spacing will not get optimum results. If the rod is already finished though, it will increase performance.
Elrod

There is no substitute for test casting & trial /error placement of the butt guides with the second (third & fourth) collector guides. They do work well and I always use them but the number, size and position of them can only be properly determined by test casting.