I'm building as few 30 inch noodle rods was curious if there was more than the that looks about right method to guide spacing on ice rods

Hunter,
I have built hundreds of ice rods including many noodle rods.

The spacing of a short ice rod are set up in exactly the same way as a longer rod. There just needs to be a guide wherever the rod bends while loaded to let the line follow the blank.

Some folks who have not built short spinning rods, make the mistake of putting the butt guide too close to the reel.

On a typical long rod, the butt guide is set at about 19 inches from the reel. In the case of a 30 inch ice rod with a 6 inch handle, that would put the first guide at 6 inches from the tip. So, that wont work.

So, a compromise needs to be made. I generally will put the butt guide at about 10 inches from the reel seat, which puts the first guide near the middle of the rod - where there is still some beef.

Then, you only need about two or maybe 3 more guides to get to the tip of the rod. You will have the tip top and then go down about 2-2 1/2 inches for the next guide and then down about 2 3/4 for the next guide

You may or may not add one more guide down about 4 inches and you will be good to go. If fishing inside, you can use size 3 guides for the top 3 guides and then go with a taller size 10 for the butt guide and be good to go.

On a short ice rod with a spinning reel, if the butt guide is too close to the reel - like 8 inches, you get a roll, jerk, roll, jerk action as you reel in the line due to the action of the spinning reel making its rotations.

A very nice way to go with ice rods today, is to use a straight line reel, rather than a spinning reel. Then you can use a size 6 butt guide and be good to go.

For example:
[jet.com]

Roger pretty much nailed it. With a softer "finesse" noodle that flexes all the way to handle you will want to use enough guides to protect the blank in case of a big fish. With a "power" noodle that has a stiff butt and mid-section you may be able to put the butt guide out a bit further. Another way to reduce the annoying "roll, jerk, roll, jerk action as you reel in the line" is to use a tall butt guide. I have gone to a size 10 Pac Bay Minima Match guide (XM4XG10) for all my ice rods. The next guide is a Pac Bay Model SF Hard Wire Single Foot Fly Guide size 5 (XSFG5), followed by one or two size 4, and then a size 3 for the tip. We are not casting, and could certainly go straight to size 3s after the butt guide, but I like the looks of the guide system with 5, 4, 3. If you're fishing inside a shelter all the time you could go with even smaller guides, but I don't mind a bit of weight on the tip of a noodle to pre-load it a bit.

It is important that you take some time and prep all those guides by sanding or filing a nice, shallow ramp to help with wrapping them on a noodle blank. When wrapping, I like to start by sliding tiny dental bands down the blank first, then using a gel CA (super glue) to attach the tip guide before wrapping. After wrapping the tip you can use the bands to attach the other guides and then perform your static testing/guide spacing.

There is a Static Guide Placement article here: [www.rodbuilding.org] Be sure to read the part about tying a line to the tip, and also running a line from the reel and through the guides. This article is not referring to ice rods, but you can use a condensed version of the process.

_________________________________________
"Angling is extremely time consuming.
That's sort of the whole point." - Thomas McGuane



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2017 01:43PM by Chuck Mills.

thanks! I just started building rods so I've been doing a lot of reading on here everyone seems to be so helpful