I have written in our diary pages

Fuji New Guide Concept

I have written in our diary pages, that I think the fitting of oversize ring sets to some lighter carp rods can spoil their performance. I have three reasons for saying this.

1. The excess weight of bigger rings saps the power of the rod. A rod of zero mass would put all the casting force into accelerating the lead. Increase the weight of the rod and its components and more force goes into accelerating the rod, and less into casting the weight.

2. Excess ring weight makes a light crisp blank feel sloppy. Small ring weight changes have dramatic effects on feel. A gramme or two at the end of a fly rod can radically change its "feel", and only a few grammes can make a difference on light carp rods. Add a set of rings based on a 50mm but, going down to 16' on the tip and you can spoil the action of almost any carp rod.

3. Bigger rings means stiffer rings. The stiff frames can effect the rod flexing and even damage the wall of a lightweight blank.

Now Fuji have started to put forward their thoughts and findings in the "New Guide Concept". The New Guide Concept favours smaller butt rings and more and smaller intermediates. The New Guide Concept ring spacings are closer to what I favour, but a little different to current fashion. Below is a chart which shows some tests they have carried out.

Click to enlarge.

The test rods with smaller 30mm butt rings and and smaller intermediates performed best in distance casting, almost 5% better on distance, and also slightly better on consistency. One factor they attribute this too is reduced line slap.

More interesting, and surprising is the fact that in further tests, the New Guide Concept spacings also give more power when playing a fish.

So what can we conclude from this. Do not assume when it comes to rings that bigger is better. Fuji and I believe that you will get great performance from a ring set based on 30mm butt rings. They favour six rings on the tip, I would go for 5, but we both think that a 40mm butt and four intermediates on the tip will give you less performance on your carp rod. They put this down to line slap, I thing rings mass is the issue. Maybe we are both a little bit right.