Ok another question for you guys, I'd like to build my father in law a rod for hover fishing in the Columbia River. The blank I need needs to be sensitive enough to feel the bite and be able to handle a 3-5 oz weight with 20 to 30# braided line. Not so sure about the action because I'm still not to familiar with that, if anyone has any suggestions that would be great!

Also any tips and tricks on spiral wrapping would help a lot to.

Thanks, Trace Butkovich.

The fish we will mostly be targeting is chinook salmon.

Hover fishing is usually done in frog water with medium power 7 1/2 to 8 ft. Hotshot blanks, and rarely over 2 oz. of weight.
You must be fishing heavier water like the Bonneville Dam pool, or similar area to need that much weight. I'd call or email the Batson clan and see if their XBB964 would work, I know the XBB962 would and they discontinued it because the difference in the blanks was minimal, I've heard.
I had some good Lamiglas suggestions, but they discontinued a bunch of blanks.
Let us know how it goes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2016 11:47AM by Spencer Phipps.

Sweet thanks, how about ideas for spiraling your guides. how does a guy position his eyes so the line don't bunch up on one side of the casting reel or is that even a problem?

We don’t hear a whole lot about hover fishing on the Columbia (though we know the river well) but these would be our RainShadow Rod Blank recommendations:

RX7 HS962 1-Piece and HS1023 2-Piece - [www.rainshadowrodblanks.com]

RX4 BP1024 2-Piece which you can also use as a Downrigger - [www.rainshadowrodblanks.com]

As far as Spiral Wrap goes, typically we start the first guide at 10-20 degrees, then to 40, 90, 140 and finally the full 180 degrees. Though always static test before fully wrapping as every blank is different.

James Taylor
Batson Enterprises
BatsonEnterprises.com | RainShadowRodBlanks.com | ALPSForeCast.com | Build2Fish.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2016 10:56AM by James Taylor.

Double post.

Trace,
For the most part, the level wind does a decent job of keeping the line from stacking on you. I imagine there could be rare occasions, but they have not happened to me and all my steelhead and salmon rods are spiral wrapped going on 15+ years.
I start with the first guide from the reel in the 0 deg. position though and progress equally to the bottom as described before.

thanks for the help!

Still trying to get some terminology down to, are the guides towards the end of casting rods called micro guides or is there a better guide to use to keep the line a little off the blank?

Micros are super tiny. If you're using a heavy mono leader and need to pass the knot with 30lb braid, I'd pass on those. Look on mud hole, they used to have an image of a micro sitting on top of a penny for reference. May still be there.

Thanks randy, what would you recommend instead of micros or when I order a smaller ring size do they just automatically shrink height wise to and change to single foot? Probably making it more confusing then it really is????

Since you will be doing a spiral wrap, the guides on the tip section of the rod will be facing down like those on a spinning rod. Thus the height of the guide needed to keep line off the blank becomes a moot point. You can use either single or double foot guides for your runners and a size 6 runner will work just fine for what you are doing. They a large enough to pass any knot you use and small enough to lighten the tip section when compared to larger runners. Micro guides are usually thought of as guides smaller than a size 6 (5.5 - 3). Hope this helps.
Norm

Trace,
Since we salmon anglers don't pass knots through our guides it's not important. We use swivels, or direct tie our rigs so we only have to concern ourselves with the durability of the tip top if we are so are prone to reeling our swivel or lure into the tip, this can damage the tip top over time. When you see a tip top without the ceramic ring in it and no other apparent damage you've met one of these persons probably.
Your rod will also be used strictly presenting weight and bait vertically along side the boat so casting performance is not paramount. If you use it to pull plugs as it was designed, again casting isn't important.
So with this presentation, weight and bait a few feet off the bottom, in water usually 12 to 25 ft. deep, in water with little or no current, sensitivity and a light tip are important, you want to know the fish is there before he knows you are about to cross his eyes.
A 6mm F style single foot guide that you see on many rods over the last 20 years is 6 times heavier than a 3 mm version, Batson built a XBB 962 backbouncing rod on spiral wrapped micro guides and have used it extensively, they would be a great source of first hand info and the guides they used.
Gary Loomis was putting guides down to 4mm on some of his steelhead personal and factory rods 30+ years ago, this is not new stuff in the Pacific Northwest.
I personally use them on my rods and have two build styles, one where rough use is likely and the one I use on my own rods.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2016 11:19AM by Spencer Phipps.

Hey thanks for the info Norman and Spencer been a huge help! And your right about the whole passing a knot through the guides never knew people did that till I joined this message board.

Thanks again, Trace.

The nice thing about microguides is that they do make the rod lighter and more responsive with few draw backs. With that said I do not personally go below a size 4 runner. When you go smaller unexpected problems begin to pop up. These problems range from threading line through them, icing in cold weather, debris build up, and fragility amoung others. I have broken size 3 micros just grabbing the rod. So in my opinion micro guides are great but do not go really small, they are not worth the aggravation.
Norm