Dekka
24-10-2005, 03:55 PM
Found this on another website and thought it might be of interest.
"Guides ain't guides" - or "Horses for Courses" - or "You get what you pay for - maybe?"
Chas Riegert gave the members of the Drycasting group a very compelling demonstration of the differences between different types of rod guides / runners.
Those of you who know Chas know that he is a ball of muscle. Well, Chas grabbed a few short lengths of 20kg mono - you know the stuff you can sometimes use to haul big fish out of the water against their will.
He threaded it through a guide and got someone else to hold the rod tightly each side of the guide. He then held the mono so that it was doing nearly a 180 degree bend through a runner, loaded up the line and pulled it back and forward as fast as he could over the runner surface.
Well, the results were amazing. On "normal" run of the mill runners, it took only five or six stokes for the line to break. The mono was flattened and curled - absolutely destroyed by the friction.
Even on "top of the line" runners - read "quite expensive" and with a very good reputation, Chas broke the line after about twelve strokes - better than "normal" runners, but the line was still destroyed - flattened and very badly curled.
He then repeated this on silicon carbide guides. The count got to about 30 and Chas eventually had to stop because the line was cutting his hands - but the line didn't break - and it was still round, with no obvious flattening - an absolutely amazing difference.
Sure, this is a brutal way to treat line - but we've all met a few brutal fish - haven't we?. This has convinced me that if you want to use light mono on fast running fish, then getting the right guides could make the difference between a break off or a successful catch. And they would obviously reduce the wear on your line over time and probably let you cast further, and also help avoid those dreaded "break offs" while casting.
"Guides ain't guides" - or "Horses for Courses" - or "You get what you pay for - maybe?"
Chas Riegert gave the members of the Drycasting group a very compelling demonstration of the differences between different types of rod guides / runners.
Those of you who know Chas know that he is a ball of muscle. Well, Chas grabbed a few short lengths of 20kg mono - you know the stuff you can sometimes use to haul big fish out of the water against their will.
He threaded it through a guide and got someone else to hold the rod tightly each side of the guide. He then held the mono so that it was doing nearly a 180 degree bend through a runner, loaded up the line and pulled it back and forward as fast as he could over the runner surface.
Well, the results were amazing. On "normal" run of the mill runners, it took only five or six stokes for the line to break. The mono was flattened and curled - absolutely destroyed by the friction.
Even on "top of the line" runners - read "quite expensive" and with a very good reputation, Chas broke the line after about twelve strokes - better than "normal" runners, but the line was still destroyed - flattened and very badly curled.
He then repeated this on silicon carbide guides. The count got to about 30 and Chas eventually had to stop because the line was cutting his hands - but the line didn't break - and it was still round, with no obvious flattening - an absolutely amazing difference.
Sure, this is a brutal way to treat line - but we've all met a few brutal fish - haven't we?. This has convinced me that if you want to use light mono on fast running fish, then getting the right guides could make the difference between a break off or a successful catch. And they would obviously reduce the wear on your line over time and probably let you cast further, and also help avoid those dreaded "break offs" while casting.