MickD

My rod is a Galyan Performance Series HMG 54. The power is described on the decal as med-light, and the CCS numbers confirm it is less powerful than the St Croix I mentioned, and not quite as fast. It feels closer to the St Croix than the CCS numbers would indicate. It is a little heavier than the St Croix, also. A nice rod, but not a St Croix SCV.

In my opinion there is no action that a graphite rod cannot have. It's all in the design. Graphite rods will almost invariably be lighter than equivalent action/length/power glass rods. I'm not advocating one over the other, just pointing out a likely difference. Many rods are also blends of different graphites, and they are usually very light as well. Not 100% sure what "blend" means, grahite + glass, two different moduli of graphite? The latter in most cases I expect. As others have mentioned, many prefer slow actions (natural for glass) for trebles since they don't tend to pull trebles out so much, but if a fast action is not too stiff in the tip, it can be fine as well, and fast actions usually can cast a wider range of lure weights easily. One last consideration, if you are going to use the rod for hard jerks, like pointers, and you are fishing early smallmouths, you want to be able to really snap a very aggressive action into the jerk. A really slow/soft action just will not do it. What all this means is that pros have a lot of rods in the boat for different lures/techniques. I have three crank rods, all graphite, two light/slow for surface and some lipless cranks, and one a medium/extra fast for the aggressive twitch technique.

exaggerated and unrealistic. That is exactly the point I was making.

Tennis raquet tape will work just fine. Go to the biggest shop around, pick the one that you like the most, and do it. That is the easiest way, looks good, feels very tacky. I think Winngrips might make a golf club tape that will probably work well, too. Winn is coming out with a specific tape for rod handle restoration and improvement, and it is excellent. Doubt if you can find it locally.

Let's just say that arguing that casting an unweighted grub with Microwave is the same as casting a 3 oz swimbait with conventional is BS. BS? Look it up. Microwave is a good system, but it is not magic. It's major advantage is in rod sensitivity due to low mass guides. A secondary advantage is that it is very easy to set up the spacing of the guides. The casting distance advantage is debatable, but minor at best.

I don't get the difference between nanofil and braid. Both are very small diameter lines with zero stretch that cast very nicely. The only difference I see is that nanofil is more demanding on knots. And it may not be as durable as braid.' With both nanofil and braid you will feel fish take the lure much easier than with mono. There are times with braid/nanofil that fish will pick up and move and you will detect it by your line moving out of position. If you cannot see the line well then use the yellow braid or white nanofil with a 6-7 foot leader, and you're back in business with watching the line. I really prefer the braid/nanofil line on spinning finesse fishing. So much better feel.

Keep in mind that distance is not the whole story. The lighter the guide train, the more sensitive the rod. At least with high modulus blanks this is true. If you are using a low modulus graphite, or glass, you might not notice the advantage of lighter guides. Cast an unweighted grub like a 3 oz swimbait? I respectfully call a "hyperbole alert."

For light braid you can use about any reel you want and it will cast fine. As for twisting, I have had braid get twisted a lot and have found that it still performs fine, doesn't loop up like mono or flouro. I don't know if smaller reels twist the line more than bigger reels. If I were you I would get a name brand reel with a trusty drag in the 2000-2500 range. At around $100 you can get some really nice, very smooth operating, reels. I have found some really good deals on Ebay, and I would also look for sales at Cabelas, BPS, etc.

With 10 or 12 pound braid you can use just about any guide train successfully. That light of braid is very forgiving. For rods that I am planning only to use light braid on I would start with a 16. Anyone wanting more info on the current guide train philosophies can get really smart on Fuji's by visiting their website at http://anglersresource.net/

Everyone is talking guide diameters, but on the first couple guides of a spinning rod it has been found that if you go higher you can go smaller without a penalty. How much smaller depends on the line characteristics, but you can go smaller. As for the running guides the only things limiting how small one can go are iceing the passage of knots through the guides. It's hard to logically argue that a line of .015 inches has a hard time getting through a guide with an I.D. of .125 inches. Think of it this way, the longer those loops keep their shape, the more the line is slowed by air resistance. Getting the loops efficiently minimized as soon as possible reduces air resistance making for longer casts. This is not as important as the elimination of weight on the blank, in my opinion, because we can usually cast far enough to catch fish with almost anything. The sizing and spacing of the guides on a spinning rod, including the heights, is optimized by even considering the reel measurements in the Fuji system. The American Tackle Microwave system utilizes a patented double ring first guide and has been out there for a few years now and has been proven to be much more than just a marketing gimmick. The smaller the guides you can use, the lighter the rod, and the more sensitive the rod. With some of the systems today the whole guide train weighs less than the first two guides of a conventional systems. I won't even get into the argument that properly sizing and spacing and minimizing size of casting rod guides can result in better casting performance, but that too is true.

http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/fishing-rod-handle-kits/230100.aspx

If you still have the screw, and the "clamp" isn't too complicated, I would think you or a machinist could fashion a new one and drill and tap it for the screw. Might not look as good, but should work at least until you run across some new ones. I'm sure that sooner or later you will.

Not sure how to view a larger image, suggestions please?

I didn't say I thought it was built by St Croix, I said it performs like a St Croix SCV. I don't remember when I bought it. I'll try to change my personal pic to show what it looks like now.

I have had a Galyan rod, an upper level rod I believe, for many years. I got it as part of a combo, I think. I always liked the blank (nice medium brown color) but hated the ugly grey guide rings and the grip/reel seat. I rebuilt the rod to my liking and love it. It feels almost the same as my St Croix SCV70MF, level 5 , 7 foot, medium power, fast action.

This seems a lot like saying how do I keep my binocular from making things look so big?

I have had so much trouble with flouro on baitcasters that I'm just going back to mono and copolymer. One problem with many flouros is how fragile most of them are if they get kinked, and that's a problem on BC and spinning. I'm going to braid with flouro leader material (not line) leaders where I like that combo. I really don't think the perceived advantages of flouro line compensate for the terribly variable quality of lines, even name brand lines. Better to have something that is easy to use and is dependable. I know, some have no problems, but that has not been my experience.

You got me! I did think you were serious. There just may be some folks out there in internet land that would do that, though.

I just cannot believe with all the years of development of lubricating oils specifically for machinery like fishing reels that olive oil could be as good at lubricating a fishing reel as "fishing reel oil" by someone like Shimano. Just cannot believe it.

If you want to see what two ounces will do to a rod take a few spit shot totalling about two ounces and tape them along the length of the rod and feel what you have. With proper paint you're talking about almost no weight, hundredths of an ounce, I expect. And the effect of it on the action is imperceivable to most if not all. But do this operation wrong and a blank can easily be ruined.

I'll bet you were using leader grade floro and not something like Vanish line. Right? That's the other half of this equation that sometimes gets forgotten. I think some knots like the albright fail because some floro is incapable of being kinked that tightly. I have had name brand 15# flouro line fail right after picking out a backlash, under very light loading.

Not that red stuff; it can stiffen and leave a hard to remove red "paste." The Reel Mech used to charge extra when he had to service a reel with that lube. I use reel butter, but any sewing machine oil, shaver oil, gun oil, or clear/not dyed reel oil should be fine. Any are a heck of a lot better than none, which is what many reels see.

Are you the only one these rods are exposed to? I know that not all people know how to handle a rod properly. I've never seen guides on my rods bent from anything but my mistakes, like those already mentioned. There is one more that can easily bend guides, and that is improperly taking multiple piece rods apart. I would think improper stowing could bent 2 or 3 guides in a row. Jerking on wind knots could bend a guide. Probably not the Bigfoot.

Regarding length, I make mine short enough so they don't enter the reel. Some use them short enough so they don't enter the rod at all. With braid and fast action rods you have a pretty "hard" system, and I think a leader of 5 feet or so provides a little "shock relief," but just try different lengths and see what you prefer.

For spinning it's all about the rod. For baitcasting it's all about the reel.