I will be building a 7-weight for saltwater use (long casts with shooting heads) and would really appreciate some opinions on the size of the stripping guides (two) to use since the size seems to be going up these years.

Also I will be using Pac Bay TicH single legged snakes og tip top and I suppose the rings should form a "tunnel" leading the line from the reel to the top without too many uneven steps, but the largest single legged snake is about 8.2 mm and the step down from the stripping guide should not be too big or what ?

Any thoughts ?


Thanks
Peter

Peter; Typically your 7 wt. should have a sz 20 guide for a stripper. With a sz 16 following. As you do your static deflection (guide space determination) that will dtermine where the stripper will go. There is a new concept in the "big guns" after you have dtermined where all of the guides go, there is usually a lot of line slap between the stripper and the second buide on the butt. This concept is called the "100 mm guide. This guide is tyypically the next size down from the stripper ie. sz 16. This guide is placed 100 mm or 4 inches above the stripper guide. It works. Shouldn't affect the action cause its on the butt, cuts down line slap. If you want to try it, Set your guides, tape an extra guide 4 inches above your stripper. Then go try test casting it. You determine the results. I have tried this on a numberr of rods, and it seems to hold true. Even down to the 4 and 5 wts. Good luck .

This may or may not work for you. I use the Fuji single foot ceramic guides and start with a #16 SVSG (high frame spinning style) and then go to a #12 SVSG followed by SG8's the rest of the way out. Depending on your line set-up and what connections you need to pass, you may be able to substitute SG7's for those 8's. If so, do it.

This is just a suggestion and is from what I normally use on such a rod. Give it a try along with the other suggestions you get here and I'm sure you'll hit on a nice set-up.

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Thanks for the suggestions,

and thanks for the explanation about the extra stripper - sound like a great idea to try out.

I was thinking of this setup - # 25 - # 20 ("slap absorber") - # 16 then single fot 8,1 mm ending with a 8,35 mm tip top - will it be "too much" to start with the # 25 ?

It won't be too much, but it may well be unecessary. I always tell people to use the smallest guides that will do the job you need to do. Using anything larger is just adding extra weight.

Try some test casting with different size stripping guides. Start small and move up. Once you see no further improvement, stop there.

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I would say that 25 is too big a stripper for a 7 wt rod. Most 7 wts I've seen have a size 16 as the first guide. But, I prefer a 20 on my saltwater fly rods (although an 8 wt. is the lightest I've built so far) followed by a 16 and a 12, then the single foot guides.