Have a couple of SW fly rod project on for myself. One is a 9wt (Bonefish, Permit, Triggerfish and Pike in the Baltic Sea) and the other a 12wt (GT, Tarpon etc). I am pondering between snake guides and PacBay Minima4 TiBlack running guides for these rods. I'd like to know your experience of the Ti Minimas in medium to heavy SW fly rods. How do they cope the salt, double hauling and knots?

Many thanks!

-Miki-

Miki, I use Ti minima guides on fly rods, spinning rods, bottom fishing rods in salt. I rinse with fresh water after every use and they hold up. I haven't had any negative feedback from customers as well. I prefer snake guides on my fly rods so I'll use RECoil or snake brand guides for the runners. Good luck!

I second the RECoil snake guide recommendation. They will not break or corrode. They are lightweight. They bend but will not bend out of shape. They are a solid nickel-titanium alloy all the way through, not a vapor "titanium film" deposited over base metal. They are pretty much bomb-proof, but pricey. The REC stripper guides are squeaky-noisy and the REC tip-tops are ugly, in my opinion.

The titanium Minima guides are all titanium, except the ring and if you pick up a full set of both the Ti and stainless guides it's quite a difference in weight. They don't bend and spring back, but that's not much of a selling point with me asmI've replaced broken REC guides, most because the customer was showing their buddies how indestructable they were, till they weren't. The Pac Bay are also way cheaper, the best deal in titanium out there.

hi Miki..when fishing for larger fish, don,t you have a problem with the snake guides biting into your fly line under load making for a stick and go stick and go flow of the line..

Phil Ewanicki Wrote:
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> The REC stripper guides
> are squeaky-noisy and the REC tip-tops are ugly,
> in my opinion.

Thank you Phil. I agree with the above. In my experience fly line gets slightly stuck in the Recoil tip top between the wires where they enter the tube or atleast it causes significant excess friction. Was more into rod building around the millenium when they came out. Surpriced really to see the tip tops still being made as the design is in my opinion faulty.

Not a big fan of the strippers or single foot guides either. The material has more friction that chrome and together with their bendy nature they start to vibrate and resonate when thick flyline is pulled against them. This is very common phenomena with double handed rods with sf Recoils. Line shoots poorly and the noise is very obvious.

The snake models I like though as the line meets the wire in a better angle so that they do not practically resonate and the line shoots well.

I was a big fan fuji sic titanium, but minima will have the same problem. When I got the fish of a lifetime a got a" frayed" connection to the fly line. Not the fault of the guides. With snake guides this would have been a non issue, however with a ringed guide size eight I needed help to feed the fly line connection through the guides with 125 lb fish on the other end.

ben belote Wrote:
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> hi Miki..when fishing for larger fish, don,t you
> have a problem with the snake guides biting into
> your fly line under load making for a stick and go
> stick and go flow of the line..

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the comment! I better tye them snakes down properly then so that they wouldn't get to bite anything. If they still do hope they are not poisonous! ;)Just kidding...

Seriously speaking I've experienced this phenomena mostly with double handed rods when using monocore coated runningline. The softened runningline sort of kinks in back cast due to the fine wire of the tip tops. In forward cast the bounce effect of the rline getting free of this kink is annoying and results in poor shooting. Have not had the exact issue as you described though - have only a little experience in the heavy tropical sw fishing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2017 03:56PM by Miki Stenberg.

I have not yet achieved much experience with the REC tip top, so have not experienced the sticky complaint, but was wondering if a dab of epoxy in the right place would prevent it?

i don,t fish saltwater. my experience is with hair bug fishing for bass. this was years ago when i used snake guides on a 9 wt. rod.. everytime i hooked up with a nice size bass the the wire guides would dig into the line when we locked up and then suddenly jump free giving too much slack, sometimes enough for the fish to unhook himself...then i found this site and tom and some other were touting how much better ceramic guides worked on fly rods..i built a rod with ceramics and to this day that,s all i use, no more sticking line..maybe if i used two or three more snake guides to spread the load out, i would not have a problem but i was happy with the ceramics, so smooth.

I've never had my line stick to a snake guide, and I've caught some big stripers, blues, and false albacore. I don't use floating line so maybe that's the reason. If line connections stick to guides as they pass i flip the rod over so the line lays on the blank and passes without problems. Once it passes the guides roll the rod back upright and continue fighting the fish. Good luck

Ben - I see what you mean. Thanks!

Thanks for the tip Mr Harmon.

Have you received positive feedback from your customers who bought a SW fly rod from you with Minima 4 guides? Have many people come back wanting another with Minima 4 guides?

Cheers!

hi Miki..it was back when bragging rights were more important to me now if i hook a big fish i almost hope he gets off, too much work..i think that,s why i prefer bluegill fishing now..lol. but still when i see snake guides it triggers me.. lol.

Miki, i,ve heard Tom K. say good things about minima 4 guides never aything good about snakes.. that may be a word or lack of words to the wise. lol.

Yes, customers like the minima guides on all rods. I even use them on surf casting rods. Most have never seen them before so they are a little hesitant but agree to use once they see I use on my own rods. No returns or complaints. Like I said earlier, wash with fresh water after using....everytime. Good luck.

The only thing I worry about on the Minima guides is the strength or how much force it takes to bend the guide at the neck. I have used Ti framed SIC ring Fuji L guides on fly rods because I believe they are stronger than the Minimas. Maybe I am just paranoid because I have no real test or examples to go by. I believe some destructed testing is needed to determine this. There are a couple of things I learned with these types of guides on fly rods. Do not use a size smaller than a 7 mm ring on 8 to 10 wts and add more running guides than you would snake guides on the same rod. I have found they will cast better with more single foot ringed guides. This pretty much limits you to Ti frames due to the weight factor, it also increases the cost of the build but the weight will still be less than less double footed snake guides due to less thread and epoxy. The blank will not slow down or flex more due to the single foot Ti framed guides. Go for it. I also do not like single foot snake guides or the snake Tip Tops.

Rod guide advertisers use the term "Ti" guides like soap advertisers use the term "new and improved". Neither claim means much of anything. A solid titanium guide would cost more than $100 - each. A pot metal guide covered with a microns-thick vapor deposit of a titanium compound could probably be sold at a nice profit for less than five bucks. A solid titanium alloy guide will fall much closer to $5 than $100. Beware of hype. Get what you pay for.

Many thanks gents!

How do the titanium framed Minima 4s rate in smoothness when double hauling in relation to regular snakes or Recoils - do they vibrate and make sound?

Phil - I appreciate your good point! However if these 'full titanium' framed Minima fours offer improved corrosion resistance and are strong enough I do nor care if they actually are an alloy instead of the pure real deal.

Cheers!

-Mikko-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2017 03:01PM by Miki Stenberg.

No noise from the minima guides....from my experience. REcoil stripper guides are the only guides I've used that make noise.