Why Snake Type Guides

[Stan Wright]

While setting up our flyrods today my friend ask.....
"Why does this flyrod have guides like a spinning rod?" (single foot guides)
"And my other rod has these swirley type guides" (snake guides)

I had no answer... Usually a flyrod has one or two stripping guides and then the rest are the single wire snake guides. Can anyone shed some light on this?
Aloha,
Stan

[Normand]

i dont think its a weight thing---

untwist this


and you get this

[Jeff Clough]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that snake guides produce less friction because of their design. At least, that's what the shape suggests to me.

[Normand]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that snake guides produce less friction because of their design. At least, that's what the shape suggests to me.

i think either one provides the same amount of friction. there's only a single point of contact between the fly line and either guide

[Sully]

i think either one provides the same amount of friction. there's only a single point of contact between the fly line and either guide

Correcto! There cannot be anymore than the tangent point of the line itself running across the face of the "guide" ( regardless of style) for a short distance generating a "line of contact" ( and its mighty small)

[Big Bad Wulff]

Correcto! There cannot be anymore than the tangent point of the line itself running across the face of the "guide" ( regardless of style) for a short distance generating a "line of contact" ( and its mighty small)

Except when the line is moving in a circle...............

[Buddy Sanders]

Ease of manufacture, as Sully pointed out.

They were easy to produce, and they wroked well with the old style woven silk lines...silk was/is prone to grabbing onto anything that may pinch or protrude. Most silk lines were 'dressed' with a variety of chemicals and substances to make them float..this stuff rubs off onto the guides...snake style guides are easier to clean (you can grab the guide between two fingers, give a slight twisting rub, and the 'gunk' would slide off or down towards the rod on either end of the guide, getting it off the portion where the line contacts the guide).

They then became a 'tradition' and many fly fishermen don't like the 'look' of single foot guides.

I only use single foot ceramic insert guides on all my fly rods. While not a 'traditional' look, I'm building a modern fly rod and trying to take advantage of all that modern technology can offer. Makes no sense to me to use a graphite blank with millions (if not billions, this is defense industry technology) of research and design refinements behind it and couple it with 18th century era line guides.

Buddy

[dudley]

Snake guides are traditional
Nothing more, nothing less
Back in the day when the guides were handmade it was just plain easier
They were actually a step up from the ring guides

[deathb4disco]

A local guide I know builds rods, and he asked the chief designer at one of the major rod companies "why snakes guides". This was his exact response:

Snake guides are traditional
Nothing more, nothing less

[Silver Creek]

A local guide I know builds rods, and he asked the chief designer at one of the major rod companies "why snakes guides". This was his exact response:

Snake guides are traditional
Nothing more, nothing less

I think that response is begging the question. It adds nothing and says nothing. It is an answer that avoids giving an answer. So I take issue with that designer's response.

Bamboo was tradition but it was replaced by fiberglass and fiberglass by graphite. Ferrules were fitted metal but now are tip over butt integrated graphite. Silk lines were tradition but they were replaced by plastic. Horse hair for leader material was tradition but it was replaced by nylon and fluorocarbon. Old reels were pressed metal, than cast, and now bar stock machined. Drags were click pawl, then pressed cork, and now deldrin. Don't even get me started on waders and rainwear.

Rod companies spend thousands of dollars on finding the best materials and methods for fly rod design and production. To think they would ignore guides because of tradition is ridiculous.

If tradition were important there would be no market for Thingamabobbers. If tradition were the reason for snake guides, why are they currently wound with nylon and covered with epoxy rather than silk and shellac?

Why have all the above changed and snake guides not? The reason is that snake guides are the lightest functional guides for fly rods. How much longer would it have taken to say that rather than to defer to tradition?