Now I'm ready out and around that using lots of guides, and bigger ones, is going to give my fly rod more casting distance. What's the deal here? Is there such a thing as too many guides or guides that are too big? Is there no set-up that most people agree on as being the best all-around? Sorry to ask so many questions but I figured if those of you on this board couldn't answer these questions then no one can. Thanks.

Try the custom rod builders guild web site they have a good discussion going on this subject right now.

Agree with Mr.Upton about going to the guild board the discussion is on hot and heavy and extra technical, co efficients of friction, measuring line drag on guides. When you're thoroughly confused go back and take a second look at the 1st 2-3or4 posts one of which is mine. Maybe you'll find some help in there somewhere.Good luck! Warren

I’ll go ahead and warn you that this is going to be long winded, and isn’t likely to give you the answer/s you are looking for. I have seen the other discussion, and far too many variables are being left out. The thing is - there is just isn't any cut and dried answer to your quesiton.

A blank will be its most efficient in its naked state. But what good is it like that? So we add guides and now we can control and cast a line with it. But the additional weight of the guides will undermine rod performance and efficiency to some point. How much? Depends upon how much weight we add. More weight requires that more of the imparted energy be used to start and stop the rod, so there is less for casting our line/lure. Casting distance is decreased.

By the way, another impediment has been added along with extra weight. Aerodynamic drag is increased and will also reduce the speed at which the rod can travel through the air. (The amount of frontal drag is much more important than overall surface drag - we don’t need to go into all of it now though. If anyone would like, I can supply the equations and method for factoring it.) Reduced tip speed also translates into reduced line speed. Distance is decreased, again.

Okay, so now we decide that we can only use an absolute minimum number of guides. Great. That would seem to keep the weight down and drag to a minimum. It also increases the compressive stress on the rod blank between the guides. And a rod has to do more than just cast, it has to fight a fish and come back in as many pieces as you started with, if you intend to use it again. Tensile stress will increase on one side and lessen on the other. Bottom line, is that the rod will now break easier than before we added any guides as the line pulls between the guides and forces the rod into a bend it wasn’t designed to take. The only way to reduce this stress is to use more guides.

So now we add more guides so our rod can stand a larger load without breaking. We have also added more weight and more drag. Bummer. We lose on the efficiency end again. But we also pick up something, maybe. Depending upon the particular line used, and if you watch closely or can film it, you will see that the line, as it passes through our guides, will sag to some extent from guide to guide. This increases the amount of surface area of the guide ring that the line must pass over. What we’d like to have is the line just touching the very edge of the ring (or frame of a snake guide). By adding more guides we might reduce this sag and get that line moving across a smaller area on each ring. Now we have less friction (and less frontal drag from the line profile, but again, a few things at a time) between the line and guides, even though we have increased the number of guides. (You will reach some point where the additional friction from adding more and more guides begins to approximate that of having the line travel over fewer guides at a greater angle. So more is only better to a point in this regard.) Then again, we are also talking about an unloaded line moving across a surface. In this instance the amount and friction we are talking about is quite minimal, but what is there definitely makes a difference. How technical do you want to get?

Now we have to look at what factors affect things the most. Does the reduction of line friction across the guides increase distance as much as adding the extra weight of the guides to the blank reduces it by creating a less efficient tool? Would using fewer guides and having that extra friction be outweighed by a lighter and less wind resistant rod that used more of its imparted energy for casting and increased rod speed and less for starting and stopping the rod? Which affects the rod to the greater extent?

Then we get into guide sizes. Too small is bad as the line can’t pass through unimpeded. Too big is bad as the extra weight harms rod efficiency. This one does have an answer though (finally) once the guides are big enough to pass the line unimpeded, increasing the size of the guides any further gains you nothing and comes at the expense of more weight and more aerodynamic drag. So you most definitely want the smallest guides that will still pass the line freely. Depending upon your set-up, that might be a #10. Then again, it might be a #4. This has more to do with your line than your rod.

There’s plenty more, but I think the point is made - anything we do to improve one area, is likely to work against us in another. Compromise is the name of the game. The same thing I have said all along still holds true - you want the smallest, lightest and fewest guides THAT WILL PERFORM THE REQUIRED TASK. If you need 20 guides to reduce that line sag to the point where you can get that line to move out, then so be it. If you find that 10 allows that rod to move faster and utilize more of the imparted energy for casting and seems to outweigh any advantage that using more guides gave you, so be it. Most of you will find the answer somewhere in the middle on almost any of this. Again, you have to remember that a good rod does more than just cast a long way - it fights a fish efficiently, holds up to the loads it was designed to handle and fatigues the angler as little as possible.

Before I wind up this lengthy discourse, let’s take a moment to talk about testing. You cannot test various set-ups using two blanks, identical though they may seem to be. They aren’t. Most of what we are talking about here is only measurable in tiny amounts. The differences between two supposedly identical blanks can thoroughly screw up any results, causing you to reach false conclusions. So you have to use the same blank for all of the various set-ups you wish to try. That means casting one set-up first, many, many times, and then putting on another set-up and casting that one, many, many times, and then hoping that your casting motions were verbatim enough to allow you to achieve relative results. Remember, results don’t mean anything if you don’t have other results to compare them to.

And by the way, did you know elevation also affects casting distance? How about barometric pressure? Yes, it affects it too.

At some point, a good rod builder will take into account those factors that play the greater roles in overall rod performance and work to improve those. Combined, they can make a measurable difference. But you will never have a rod that is optimum at each different fishing task. You will have to give something somewhere to get something somewhere else. I have left out many other considerations in this diatribe, but that’s all I’m good for this morning. Sorry.

In the meantime, instruct your customer that a clean line and correct angle of the rod during the cast can gain him quite a bit of extra distance. Distance that can be seen, felt and measured.

Tom,
Thank you for taking the time or post your thoughts on this complex subject.

One of the members who visited your shop when you were actively making rods, mentioned you had designed and built a maching for test casting. Will the machine cast a fly rod? This would take away the human variables and really focus on the components!

My learing curve for casting a fly rod is for straight line path of the rod hand through the casting stroke, now that is easy for a maching to duplicate. The energy curve is for 90-95% travel slow steady increasing acceleration and quick very short speed-up-and-stop for the final 5% of travel. The caster applies almost all the energy transfer (say 95%) of rod bending in the very short final part of the curve. To achieve longer distance we should not use more muscle power or punch the rod,,,make the s-u-a-s quicker. Variable cams? Air / hydraulic circuit?

It always amazes me how fly fisherman will use a line for years without cleaning and when purchasing a new line are delighted at the "longer distance" the new brand gives them, the previous line brand is now junk and the FF will tell all who will listen.

Regards,
FK

I think that I'll just stick with the guide size and spacing determined by the blank manufacturer. Its easy,and works just fine.Maybe we are just getting to technical with this.........Jerkbait

I know I can easily improve on what the factories offer. What they have works just fine, but with a little more effort you have something that works better. Noticeably better in many cases.

It's not too difficult to see an immediate improvement over almost any factory fly rod just by opening up the first two stripping guides by one larger size each and then dropping the number of total guides by 1. I don't know how accurate the test would be considered but when I have done it many times I can say that an improvement of at least 5 to maybe 10 feet happens almost automatically. I've done this on factory rods when I felt that I just wasn't getting the distance I thought I should be. Put on a couple larger strippers and BINGO! Problem solved. Or do a rewrap and leave out one guide. BINGO! More distance again. No it's not earthshattering but there is a difference you can measure.

My head hurts now Tom.........

Hey , you are a " Custom Rod Builder" you can do anything you want to with a blank. This past weekend I was casting Don Morton's 9'- 4 wgt. fly rod with a 9 wgt line and it had 17 guides on it ! It was awesome, it has changed my whole thoughts on guide placement.

Any 4 weight will cast a 9 weight line. I don't see where it has anything to do with guides. It has to do with how much line you hold past the tip. As long as you've got about a quarter ounce of weight past the tip, any line can be cast on a 4 weight. A quarter ounce of a 9 weight line weighs the same as a quarter ounce of 2 weight line.

I once went to a seminar where old Walton Powell demonstrated a 4 weight rod casting every line from a 2 weight to a 7 weight and getting the same distance. He showed how to do this with any rod and any line. It's no mean feat. You just have to understand the relationship between line length and weight.

Sorry William, My point was the quanity of guides that was used on this rod.

Most of what is brought up here is terrific in reference to poundage and count (that is Quantity and Weight of guides). Of course, this is what brings us to the fundamentals of explaining away as Tom did so well to help understand how to achieve line control and performance on a blank which we know has to have guides (can't easily control where the line will go off a naked blank?).

In thinking through all this one has to wonder about other than the environmental factors of humidity, barometer, water vapor pressure, or any other physical or chemical concern we wish to use in splitting hairs to merit the performance of rod casting. What I allude to here is the point that since we go to the basics of knowing we have to use guides attatched to the blank to cast the line from the reel, many times the whole shootin' match of the balance with the line, and reel may be overlooked. What I mean here is that often the construction or materials of the guides themselves may determine casting performance once it can be determined the number and weight of the guides to use. Perhaps by using a certain ring material, or guide frame configuration AND matched with a certain coated line, etc. ....all of this in symmetry with the 'perfect' wt. and constructed reel go into play to determine that perhaps one less guide can be used, or maybe even one more guide will make the performance excell even further. Nowadays, choosing the guides as to type of material in the ring or frame can make siginficant differences in the overall thoughts about layout when choosing the 'quantity' vs. 'weight' of guides to wrap on the blank. Consideration of 'quality' in materials I often think can be a big factor.

Rich
Solyrich Custom Rods
Richard's Rod & Reel