Rod Eyes!

[Baron]

Please explain your preference of eyes on rods. I like snakeeyes but have heard they may not be the most accepted. I'd sure like to hear more about the choices.

 

[JerryC]

Baron, not sure what's acceptable these days. I assume most commercial rods are still made with snake guides. I build my own rods so I have a choice.
The first fly rod I built was with snake guides. It's traditional. I blamed them for my lousy casting. I think I eventually converted that one to a spinning rod. Next one I built I used the single foot fly rod guides that Fuji had just come out with. Turned out the rings on the running guides were too small for my fly line to move through. So I talked to the owner of the place I brought my rod building components at, Dale Clemens, and he suggested I try single foot spinning guides. Conversion to the spinning guides was easier with the Fuji guides. Every fly rod I've built since I've used the single foot spinning guides.
I've gotten some strange looks and comments on trout streams. Even was told one time by a guy who was dressed like he had just stepped out of an Orvis catalog and was wading down the middle of Ridley Creek through the spot that I was fishing. I was sitting on a large rock making my casts. "That this was a fly fishing only stretch and I couldn't use a spinning rod there."
This is a picture of my 6 wgt. I was trying to take a scenic picture of a small lake in VT. It got in the way, so it's not a great picture of it.

 

[PennKev]

I've used standard snakes, single foot wire guides, and single foot ceramics on fly rods.

The ceramics offered no advantage on a fly rod and added a noticable amount of weight to the tip of the rod. They did not shoot line as well as I had hoped either. In fact, they seemed to do worse. Perhaps because of increased contact area with the line. The finished rod was a complete dog to cast. One rod was enough.

The single foot wire guides offer the same performance as conventional snakes with less wraps and finish. While this technically saves weight, it is not noticeable except for perhaps the very lightest line weight rods. Even then, the change is minimal. Some builders like single foots because there are less wraps to do, I find them a pain to wrap as it is hard to fix them to the blank while wrapping. However, they work fine and if it appeals to you, go for it.

Regular snake guides work well of course and their universal presence on virtually every factory rod from $30 Walmart specials to Orvis Helios 3's is a testament to this. If there was a significantly better option out there it would have caught on by now. Of course there are different coatings and such, but a snake guide is pretty much a snake guide as far as function is concerned.

 

[Baron]

Keep talking until Yawl get it right. I'm bent in a learnin curve here.

 

[Baron]

Oh, and there is another part I forgot to ask. are all rods equally as flexible in every direction? do they bend sideways as easily as fore and aft?

 

[Bamboozle]

I prefer calling "eyes" guides.

I also prefer calling "poles", rods, unless I am in a fancy tackle shop looking at a $1000 rod, in which case I'll ask the clerk about the "pole" to be annoying.

Carry on...;-)

 

[Baron]

Guides imply that they are leading me somewhere. If you saw my casting you'd probably call them eyes as well. Maybe that'll make you cast a blind eye on this subject?

It does seem easier to feed the line into snake 'guides'. That is helpful in numerous ways. Of course I had been a spinning guy my whole life and the snakes look cool and classy to me.

 

[afishinado]

Baron wrote:
Guides imply that they are leading me somewhere. If you saw my casting you'd probably call them eyes as well. Maybe that'll make you cast a blind eye on this subject?

It does seem easier to feed the line into snake 'guides'. That is helpful in numerous ways. Of course I had been a spinning guy my whole life and the snakes look cool and classy to me.

The vast majority of fly rods have snake guides. Single foot guides are usually only used with custom built rods at the request of the customer. I have built some rods and used single foot guides on one. As PennKev wrote above, they don't seem to make much of a difference one way or the other.

I really won't worry about the guides on your rod. Spend your time working on your casting and fishing. That will get you much further ahead of the game.

 

[JerryC]

Baron wrote:
Oh, and there is another part I forgot to ask. are all rods equally as flexible in every direction? do they bend sideways as easily as fore and aft?

That's an interesting question. I would say no. The logic maybe shakey. When I learned to build my own rods, I was taught to "spine" the rod blank. This would show you the "sweet spot" on the blank where the guides(eyes) should be placed. If you were going to build a casting rod the guides went on top of the spine. If you were building a spinning rod or fly rod they were placed on the opposite side. I've forgotten the reasoning for this. Today there seems to be a debate as to whether you need to spine a rod on the various rod building forums.
It may be based on the materials that are used to make rods today. Don't know.
Rod blanks are pretty flexible in any direction depending on the action. Adding guides and thread to hold them in place will change the dynamics. The rod will be more flexible along the line of the guides.
Do this. Take your spinning rod or fly rod. Your normal casting position. Reel down. The guides and tip are facing front, in the direction you want cast. Just flex your wrist back and forth and watch the action. When you've done that. Take the same position reel down, guides and tip facing front. Flex your wrist side to side and see if the flex is any different. Make sense?