spoonplugger1

If straightness was so important wouldn't our guides be considerably smaller on our rods to control a straight flow better? What we use now is like shooting a .22 bullet out of a 12 gage shotgun. When I fish from a kayak, canoe, whatever where my movements are restricted in some way, having a stable, in any position, while fighting, netting, or landing a fish rod is an asset. Cabela's used to make a rod, they may still that they advertised as near unbreakable, if you looked at the picture of the loaded rod the guides toward the tip were at near 90 degrees, I call that torguing, all on top guides rods do it to some extent, the line always naturally wants to go the the bottom of the rod, only the guides keep it on top. Spiral wrapped rods have been around for 100 years, this is nothing new.

I frankly don't see any big difference in the photos from any other system as far as load to the side, doesn't it look like the 40+ year old O'Quinn spiral wrap? Every style I have built over the years all do the same thing lock the rod in the vertical position under load, to the point that if you cradle the rod in your hands with the reel naturally flopped to the bottom and load the rod, the reel and rod on it's own will roll up into the upright position. How much load? My salmon rods with their heavier round reels will roll up on their own under 5 oz. of load. Visually, at least, it appears that no guide is loaded by the line until it is quite a way up the rod, if this is an advantage than why aren't all rods built that way? The first guide on an on top guide rod isn't set by a straight path now, no matter how low or small your reel is. So why is it there if not to take blank load? Lastly I want to ask just how much friction is generated by the line to guide contact, I bet you would have a hard time measuring it, while casting it would be even smaller, to the point of non-existence, if it was measurable you would think it would have been by now wouldn't you?

Sticking it in a crack in the dock, or between rocks can do the same thing.

Last one I saw like that was setting halfway out of the rod holder, bait dangling in the water when a big one hit it. They had barely enough grip on the fore grip when it blew up, fish was boated on their new pistol grip rod after he backed off the drag a lot.

You don't need a rod builder, you need rod wrappers one gentleman I know wraps at about 20 seconds per on a bad day, rarely do they also have the drum dryers on the premises for finish and drying the rods, the rod companies do that in house. They will wrap at a contracted price per guide than ship them back to you. Rod manufacturers in your area can help, they are contract workers who wrap for many companies so the info isn't proprietary by any means.

One of the problems facing us now days is that your rod wraps and decals may not be under epoxy anymore. They can very well be under a UV light setting finish, heat that and you get zero results. Import rods use it, so far I haven't seen it on a US built rod .Your blank is baked in an oven to set the epoxy prepeg cloth, wrapped on a mandrel, into a finished rod blank shape, the difference in temps between help and destruction are miniscule, especially in the tip. I don't use heat to remove anything but tip tops, it wastes time and can damage more than it helps.

If an 8 ft 5/6 was hard to find, you's think a 7 1/2 ft would be harder yet.

If I remember right the spybait has small treble, I myself would probably go Delta for that. If you go the other way concern yourself with the proper power not to pull hooks under load over tip action.

8 ft. that power isn't near as popular as it once was, 8 1/2 ft now is more the norm. Take what you can get at that price.

Like this.

The easiest way is to carbon tube oversleeve the entire grip. Simply slip a graphite tube sleeve over your existing rear grip and go fishing.

Grip interface is the same for 20 mm and smaller reel seats.

The reel seat parts all get larger as the size goes up and they get longer also, the reel's foot also gets longer and wider as the reel gets larger. Abu's round reels to 6500 use the same size foot as their smaller bass reels, 7000 and larger, the larger reel foot found on their deep sea reels. A size 20 mm trigger reel seat will fit both the bass and larger size reels so I use them on rods that could have either, for instance an Abu 6500, or the larger foot found on the Shimano Tekota, either are popular salmon/musky/catfish/etc. reels. The 20 mm also usually fits on all the graphite, composite, and glass blanks I build on. If I feel the need for a blank exposed reel seat larger than 17 mm, I build one out of a non-exposed trigger reel seat, takes 15 minutes, or so.

PSLLD 20 mm, and the PLSSD smaller size.

The PULS seat was designed for Bluewater use with larger reels that would crowd your hand on a normal trigger reel seat. Fuji has had another without the exposed blank area for decades, some of the musky anglers are using them right now on their rods.

That powder is freeze dried helium, the new secret rod lightening material. Only takes a drop of water to activate an entire rod full. Sshh! Tell no one.

Michigan, I believe it was called the hot hands grip, developed by Vibronics Rods. His rods have been outside the box and winning money for over a decade.

The lightest, most sensitive grip by far is the grip with no arbors, developed about 10 years ago.

The origin reason for graphite sleeved grips was to hide the looks of a bunch of marginal, cheap cork, the foam core came later. Decide what is important to you, set your priorities accordingly and go for it. If you look at the stuff Riley Rods has done for a longtime, you see very little of the Graphite pattern.

I've fished a time or two with persons that can't keep their hands out of the hooks, in front is probably safer for them if they have a foregrip to space it out away from the reel seat. I drill a hole in my trigger and call it good for my casting rods. I was also shown years ago the idea of using a fly snake guide as a keeper, makes getting your hook free easier and traps the lure a bit better than a dropshot keeper style does IMO.

The K series guides are not the lightest or cheapest Fuji guides, I see no benefit on a trolling rod. 8 would probably do it. I have not had any problems with the G2 style grips in rod holders, if he didn't mention he had a problem I wouldn't mess with the grip. My rod holders cradle the reel and very front of the grip only.

The G2 grips are heavier I think than the similar NFC version, it's probably because of all the trim pieces, bling adds weight. The NFC grips only have a forward arbor that is prefit and an EVA butt cap that also acts as the rear arbor. They also have split grips, overall they have a bunch of graphite grip types, including fly grips, all US made on-site and on sale still I think.

Depends on the build and the size of the guides, when you get into the micro guides there is little difference in weight, I had to start weighing 20 guide groups to get my scales to measure repeatable results.

It's not the first time American Tackle has sold a graphite tube rear grip/reel seat assy, there was the Matrix assembly some years back.

They are called slick butts.