am building 7' st. croix lll medium action ultra light spinning rod. previous advice reads thusly: "One possibility is a 25-16-12-6-6-6-6-6 +6 top layout. The first size 6 guide from the butt is located at 27x the spool diameter from the spool lip with the reel mounted; the other size 6 guides are located by the static placement method (you may be able to drop one guide, depending on the blank). The butt guide should be about 2x the spool diameter and is located 19-23 inches from the spool lip. The other large guides are located on a straight line through their outside edges between the butt guide and the first size 6 guide. Change guide sizes as needed to get as straight a line as possible with the correct static placement."

my major concern at this point is that the drop from 12 to 6 seems extreme now that i have taped guides to rod. visually, these sizes appear to encourage a bit of a bottleneck for the line (i have not gone through static process yet.) will static process reveal this to be a nonproblem, or do i need to step this down more gradually before static test. or, does his advice to "change guide sizes as needed to get as straight a line as possible with the correct static placement" potentially take care of this problem? i am just not sure if having the rod under stress in the test will reveal the truth of these sizes or if i will have enough perceptiveness to recognise what is needed. plus, there is the question of proper guide sizes in relation to two different stresses: 1.casting and 2. playing a fish. thanks for any additional help.

what pound line are you using? if you are using 2-6lb I would use match guides as they are much higher than regular guides. You have to watch for line slap with the lower dia. line.
Fuji bmyag
layout guides so when you site down guides that rings are inside each other .like a bulls eye. it is hard to explain in type.
Barry

Barry does the same as I do. I might even use less different sizes too. 25-12-8-6 or 25-12-6.

With that , I might start with a "M", then a "Y" and then a"V" or right to the single foot fly

A lot of times, when I look down thru the size 20-25, I see that ring then the inside of the 16 and then the 8---all in the middle of the 25. Like he says---think of the old archery target....Big blue outside, then yellow ring on the inside, then green then red,etc

Randy

I've been building 7' trout rods with Batson "Y" guides in a 20, then a 10, then right into either size 6 "F" guides, or size 4 Batson micro guides. The micro guides on UL and light spinning rods will blow you away.

thanks to everyone for replies so far.
knotman,
what about line slap with these smaller guides? have already begun collecting fuji alconites for this build. their 6s are built low to the rod. i will be using 4lb. fireline. would you identify "f" guide more completely, please? thanks.

I am experiencing a degree of befudlement. If I had unlimited resources, I would just decide on a direction, build this rod, and then witness the result. But I need this rod to end up reasonably well. My confusion seems to grow from my perception (right or wrong) that there seem to be two schools out there on the forum: a traditional one that says use the bullseye guide sizing method wherein each is smaller than the preceeding, which would be like every rod I have ever owned; and then a progressive philosophy that says build for minimum weight and maximum rod action, downsizing the guides to the max.

Right now, this is what I have in Fuji Black Concept Alconite Single-Foot guides: 25-16-12-6-6-6-6-6 +6. As I stated above, I am concerned with stepdowm from the 12 to the 6; it looks extreme to me taped on the rod, and i am also concerned about rod slap 6s might create. May I have further feedback on these two issues and any others I might need to worry about? Thank you for tolerating my ignorance and my whining.

If you are looking for a definitive answer, your should test it out. Make a masking tape arbor and tape on a reel and see how it casts. Everything else is an educated guess.

I would also go to the Fuji Concept guide spacing chart:
http://www.anglersresource.net/Portals/Ang...e/catalog/index page (page 51)

If you are concerned about the step down from 12 to 6, use a bridge guide (BUNAG 7 or 8) They are designed to transition from high frame to low frame guides.
I would go with your gut feel. It is your rod and you will have to live with it. You probably have a good intuition of what to do.

I often place my guides by sight first and then measure to make sure I don't mess anything up too bad. I find that my guide spacing matches some chart most of the time.

And for some good advice on how to care for your rods:
http://www.fujitackle.com/catalog/imgs/74_75.pdf

Carl

I have too much time on my hands today, we have 16" of snow and it's still falling here in Washington DC. For us, this is a blizzard.

Having finally found the fuji website again after a few years, I have been looking at the Japanese catalogue. The following link is to the history of the concept guide system.
I can't read a word of it, but the pictures are very good.

http://www.fujitackle.com/catalog/imgs/6726274445.pdf

It shows the "concept" of the concept guide system with a photo of line slap.

Carl.

thanks for the options, carl. will work on it. jim

If you're using 4lb braid without a bunch of line/leader connector knots, there's no reason to need size 6 guides on this rod, drop down to 5's or 4's or even smaller and you'll like how sensitive the rod will be. Founder, "F" guides are just single-foot ceramic ring fly guides.
Tom

Founder,
There's really no conflict between the two guide layout methods (cone of flight and new concept). In both cases, the guides should be as close to "bulls eyed" as possible when viewed through the butt guide. The only difference is that the center of the bulls eye is the choke guide (the one located at 27X) in the new concept method (the one I suggested earlier) and is the tip guide in the cone of flight method. The idea with the "New Concept" is to control the line coming off the spool as quickly as possible and then to use just enough small guides to achieve good static stress distribution. I don't think you'll have any problems with line slap with either size 6 or 4 guides.

thanks, pete. i am about to test your original suggestion. holidays have interfered (but that's a good thing). jim