Spiral guides

[jakevlastnik]

when you're buying titanium guides is nice to have a few less guides to buy and I dig how it sits flat on the front of the boat 

[SumoNinja]

Excuse my ignorance. Can u guys explain how a rod with spiral wrapped guide "sits flat"?

If u lay the rod down the rod tip guide touches the ground. That's the only thing I don't like about spiral guides. I'm a bank fisherman and need to lay down my rods a lot and a lot of times I'm on rip rap. With the traditional guides, when the rod is laid on the ground, line and all guides don't touch the ground. With the spiral wrap I gotta pay extra attention so the rod tip guide and line doesn't lay on a boulder or something that can knick the line

[Morph808]

On 11/11/2022 at 4:41 PM, jthod said:

I spiral wrap almost all my casting rods, from BFS to Swimbait rods.  

I see zero reason NOT to spiral wrap.  Fewer guides, less weight over the tip, less side torque under.  All my personal rods are spiral wrapped, and i don't see that changing.

Plus, I get to explain it to everyone that tells me I put the guides on crooked. 

Do you follow the idea to wrap in the opposite direction of the handle? Or towards the handle to lay the setup flat on the deck?

[jthod]

Opposite the reel handle. 

That's one thing I'm really not sure it really makes a difference. My thinking is which way will you be sweeping the rod.on a hook set?  What is the line/guide layout going to do while under load in that direction?

[MA Frog Man]

It was mostly done on saltwater setups on the opposite side so you could push the line with your thumb and not have to pull it on non levelwind reels. With levelwind reels some guys prefer it some say it makes no difference.  I think the only true way to find out would be to run the same exact setup with one spiraled to the right/one to the left. But same side is mostly so it sits flush on the deck. I don't think the weight savings of 2-4 guides matter when throwing 2+ ounce baits

[SumoNinja]

1 hour ago, MA Frog Man said:

It was mostly done on saltwater setups on the opposite side so you could push the line with your thumb and not have to pull it on non levelwind reels. With levelwind reels some guys prefer it some say it makes no difference.  I think the only true way to find out would be to run the same exact setup with one spiraled to the right/one to the left. But same side is mostly so it sits flush on the deck. I don't think the weight savings of 2-4 guides matter when throwing 2+ ounce baits

Can u explain what "sitting flush" means? 

[Bassmann86]

51 minutes ago, SumoNinja said:

Can u explain what "sitting flush" means? 

Laying flat on the deck of that boat. IE right hand reel, right hand spiral so the first guide is on top the transitions clock wise to the running guides on the bottom leaving the left side of the rod free and clear to lay flat “flush” on the deck

[SumoNinja]

16 minutes ago, Bassmann86 said:

Laying flat on the deck of that boat. IE right hand reel, right hand spiral so the first guide is on top the transitions clock wise to the running guides on the bottom leaving the left side of the rod free and clear to lay flat “flush” on the deck

I don't understand the advantage because the way u lay the rod down, the rod tip guide is touching the deck. Which is what I don't want 

I like the traditional guides because when u lay the rod down, none of the guides touch the deck or the ground 

Edited November 13, 2022 by SumoNinja

[Morph808]

1 hour ago, SumoNinja said:

I don't understand the advantage because the way u lay the rod down, the rod tip guide is touching the deck. Which is what I don't want 

I like the traditional guides because when u lay the rod down, none of the guides touch the deck or the ground 

When we refer to "laying it on the side," that means the in non-handle side plate is the one resting on the surface. On a boat deck, a right handle reel with a rod that spirals right will not have any of the guides go under the blank to get to the opposite side. Hence, it lays "relatively" flat. 

I see what you are saying in your case. When you lay a rod down, you are laying it with the reel upright and trigger of reel seat and blank making the surface contact, right?

[SumoNinja]

2 minutes ago, Morph808 said:

When we refer to "laying it on the side," that means the in non-handle side plate is the one resting on the surface. On a boat deck, a right handle reel with a rod that spirals right will not have any of the guides go under the blank to get to the opposite side. Hence, it lays "relatively" flat. 

I see what you are saying in your case. When you lay a rod down, you are laying it with the reel upright and trigger of reel seat and blank making the surface contact, right?

Ah gotcha. I see now. How does the rod stay in that position though? Won't it fall over? 

[jakevlastnik]

damn I didn't mean to start a war, I just like that it sits straight up when in the boat hahah

the right handle and the first left guide keep it upright which probably isn't good for bank guys but I don't care if the guides are down on carpet.

But ultimately I cant tell if there's a performance difference in it, I just build my stuff super minimalist so being able to shave 2-4 guides off a rod is a good enough reason for me 

 

 

[WUMFL]

From what I’ve seen, a lot of saltwater guys up here in New England like them for jigging for anything from blackfish, striper and even cod and pollock. Just better to fish vertically with the spiral wrap for most people I know, the verticality and the sensitivity, etc make it worth it for that. Line resting on the eyelet rather than the rod.

The only spiral wrap rod I own and prefer the spiral wrap on is my Cod/Pollock Setup which I use with 16-20oz Norwegian Jigs, and thats really the only place I find it necessary. All my bass rods are standard guides, even my swimbait setups. Just don’t see the need for it between the side of the fish and the more horizontal nature of bass fishing.

[DrewManFishing]

Anyone else feel like the first 5 feet of your line gets twisted/ curly with a spiral wrap?

[tHeINFamoUS]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:10 PM, chefchris said:

like @Bassmann86 said "Acid wrapped rods were mainly designed for heavy salt applications to counter rod twist under extreme load." 

was designed for short stout rods with big reels, think tuna/swordfish set ups, the spiral counters the torque from the reel load, and stops the rod set up from wanting to spin, makes using a harness while fighting a fish better and less fatigue on the angler not fighting to keep the rod straight. 

its designed and SUPPOSED to be built to spiral the opposite side of the handle, if its not and goes the same side as the reel handle its the same as having them built all on top. 

heres a basic video showing how it works. 

a lot of guys swear by it, but dont have rods that are built right anyway so makes no difference. 

also theres a lot talk tat after the 7' mark that it makes no difference anyway. 

I’m plenty familiar with the theoretical and practical applications, it’s just perplexing when people start applying them to bass fishing…..cause there are no empirical benefits. Weight savings from 1-2 less guides can be measured in grams. Casting distance from less friction is pretty much unnoticeable.  Rotational torque……bass don’t pull hard enough to make it an issue.  To be perfectly honest, nobody has the sensory perception to notice these minute attributes and I’d bet if nobody ever read it on the internet, nobody would ever regurgitate them as benefits.  

The video posted is kinda misleading.  Every blank has a spine, a vertical axis in the rod that creates a natural flexing position that the rod will automatically roll into when pressure is applied. During the layup process, overlapping material flags will unintentionally create the blank spine.  I’ve noticed that they’re more pronounced in glass or hybrid composite blanks.  In graphite blanks I’ve noticed that blanks may have two or more noticeable spines.  

 When you build a rod,  you either find the spine and build off of it (strong or weak side) or find the straightest axis and build off of that (blanks aren’t always cured perfectly straight when they come off a mandrel).  Most production rods I’ve seen build off the straightest axis cause they looked better in a sales rack.  That or they don’t spine the blank at all and just start building….I’ve seen that more often in overseas rods.  

In the video, I don’t know what this guy has going on at the other end of that conventional rod or who built it but you can see the rod roll onto its side and stay there…..that’s it’s natural spined position.  If that rod was built on top of that axis, it generally wouldn’t roll cause it would naturally bend into that position.  Again, pretty much a non issue in bass fishing however.  

I think the overall moral is there is no right or wrong, only preferences lol.  

[biggfeast]

In my experience, the big difference is just leverage when fighting a fish in. 

When they make their runs left to right, it feels like the guides toward the rod tip stay with the fish better since they're underneath. 

You'll see most anglers with traditional wrapped guides move their rod opposite of the fish to keep leverage... with the spiral wrap this kind of happens naturally. 

Other than that, if its a custom rod, I like it just to be unique lol