I think Rich and Joe have hit on a point of educating people on the spiral, acid, or whatever terms people want to call this wrap. I know up here in Massachusetts it is tought to get anglers to change from the norm. Example I still wrap a lot of rods with Carbaloy guides because people do not think the fuji sic guides will work. someone told someone who heard it from a guy at the boat ramp that he had a friend that had a rod that the "ceramic" guides grooved. Until you show them then it wont catch on.
I think the worst thing would be if these factory rod people start using this wrap. Every rod manufactuer overseas will be mass producing these rods that will not be correct.

My feeling on the rod: I am going to do is get it to the way I think it will perform the best and give it to a charterboat capt that is a big cod fisherman. Let him use it on the charters. Everone will look at it as it is odd, and want to try it. Let them take afish from 200ft and see how it feels. Then the light should go on.
We shall see.

Spiral is nothing new to MANY top BASS and FLW pros. They have been using spiral wrapped and Revolver Rods for years but their big sponsorship money doesn't and won't come from the custom builders who have been suppling them. The big endorsement contracts come from the BPS, Quantum, Berkley and Shimano's of the world. MANY of these top level anglers have these contracts in place and remain silent about the spiral rods they use so they keep the money coming in. I personally know of 3 top BASS pros that have used spiral wrapped rods for over 10 years. One of the three has used them for 12+ years.

Yes the pros know. It is the product buying non-pros who are not convinced.

I too gave a TACTICAL ASSAULT Revolver Rod away at a tournament over the past weekend. The winning angler had been wanting to try one of them for years but had never made the purchase. He commented that he had seen Lonnie Stanley using a Revolver Style rod and Lonnie was sold on them. Other folks at the weigh-in awards ceremony became a little more interested right then.LOL

I also want to clear up something that a couple people emailed me about after my last post. I did not intend to sound as though I think the Forhan method is the only right way to do the spiral. No spiral is wrong. In fact I will take any spiral method over conventional.LOL

When I mentioned the line stacking problem I was seeing, I should have included that my fishing buddy could use the same rod and reel and the stacking didn't occur. It happened with me due to the way I palm the reel. From fear that other people palm the same way, I had to find a 101% solution and did with the Forhan offset butt guide.

Great dialog on the spiral wrap and the concept is landing a few new converts on each fishing trip that one the "Acid" rods(SoCal name) takes! We're going for the gusto in the West, Jim Kastroff and I have a
friendly competition on the biggest tuna landed on an Acid rod this season!
I'm cheating, though, because I don't fish as much as Jim so I am sending 2 of my rods, a 50# class and a 60# class with a friend, another true believer on a 5-day Long Range fishing trip off the coast of Baja California, goal: triple digit tuna!
Aloha!

I'm a bonafide spiral wrap junkie for sure. Everyone who has fished with a well built spiral wrapped rod becomes sold on it. I've yet to build one for someone who has not wanted another. They are just plain fun and very effective. I mostly build bass rods using the Fuji concept system which goes with the spiral wrap like soup and sandwiches. The real test is in landing big fish. Our Lake St. Clair smallmouth are big and fight like heck. Rod torque is non-existent! I also wrapped a set of four St. Croix Pro-Glass 8'6" Moderate blanks with SIC's in the spiral wrap for my friends Salmon boat. He's got a set of Abu Garcia 7000 anniversary editions on them. Talk about a sweet combo. The spiral wrap EXCEEDS at downrigger fishing. On the fourth of July weekend I landed a 26.5lb King off a downrigger at 145ft. with one of these combo's. After three mighty runs of 100 yards of line or more I was able to land the fish. Am I a spiral wrap convert - you bet!

I have read everything I can get my hands on about the spiral wrap. Now I need some help.

On a standard surf rod, do I use the same guide spacing that I am currently using?

Am getting ready to build another 30# class, 7' boat rod using the following: LRSG 25, 20, 16, 16, 12, 12. Do I still rotate the first 3 guides or just the first two?

You guys have gotten me into this, now a little assistance please! Not yet a believer but am giving it a try.

The one thing I have not heard anyone mention is their method for determining the distance between the level wind and the first guide. How are you guys going about determining how far from the reel you place that first guide?

I would think the spacing would depend upon your own static distribution test and that it would be different for the spiral wrap. For one thing you have to figure in those spiraled guides. For another, you won't have to use as many guides near the tip as the line can't touch the blank.

On the boat rod, you will have to modify your guide sizes quite a bit. On the guides that spiral around you want very low frame guides that keep the line close to the blank. Higher frames are not what you want there, I would think.

O'Quinn's method is the one I use on all my casting rods. The Forhan method, which is very similar to most of the older methods of the spiral wrap, is the one I use on boat and live bait rods. Both have been written up in the pages of RodMaker.

I have used the spiral wrap for 2 years and others in my area are still pondering the system. I have a few to clients who have used it and swear by the spiral wrap. I have 2 that I made for myself and I am having fun watching people wrinkle their noses and scratching their heads. I will say that snapper and grouper fishing in 150' of water makes little difference to the spiral wraped rods I use. IMHO