Spiral Wrap Rods Another View

[Bud Kennedy]

FD's recent video explaining some of the nuances of a spiral wrap was truly informative.  Now I would like to make a comment or two from the user side of the story.

I own two spiral wrap rods that were purchased from Lee Smith Custom Rods and most recently this past spring used a couple FDX spiral wrapped rods during my guide trip with FD.  I don't have any negative things to say about any of these rods and can first hand say that in a big fish situation or heavy cover situation the spiral wrap really performs well and virtually eliminates any torque effect experienced during the battle. 

At Guntersville froggin on the mats the rod excelled.  Landing a 4 lb fish with 15lbs of grass wrapped around it can be a test but these rods actually helped perform this heavy lift task.  I won't say they were an OH WOW moment but clearly there was some performance improvements that I credit to the spiral wrap.   I also spent a couple of days at Vero Trophy Bass Lakes.  This trip was also completed using my Lee Smith Custom rods.  We did not contend with heavy cover but we can a good amount of fish in the 4-6 lb category.  Once again the rods did a great job especially at the point of battle where the fish wants to go under the boat.  I was able to prevent this situation and once again I credit the spiral wrap.  In comparison on that trip I also used a standard Dobyns 735C and although it too performed well with standard positioned guides it did not deliver the control that the spiral wrapped rod had delivered.  Now this is not a big difference and one may consider it as a subtle difference at best but indeed there was a difference.

I did not notice any significant increase in casting distince with the spiral wrapped rods.  Certainly distance was good but I would basically the same as a conventional positioned rod.  Any of these rods you can cast a long way but my basic casting style are for shorter casts so perhaps I just don't appreciate the difference with a long or longer cast capability.  Either way the cast distance was good for my needs and sure enough if a long cast was needed I could do it.

The FDX rods were a bit different in feel than the Lee Smith.  The two rods I used with FD one was a MH and the other for square bills felt like a M or maybe even a ML rod.  Certainly was an eye opener with the lighter rod and how well it did with the small crank baits.  I did not catch any big fish on that trip but the fish I did catch in the 3 LB range were easily handled.

My final observation to share is that the spiral wrap rods are very nice and I like mine but I also like my conventional Dobyns rods.  Both style perform well.  I just want to say you should not expect any quantum performance from the spiral wrap over the conventional.  You should just expect that in some situations the spiral wrap just may keep a fish buttoned up a wee bit better so you can bring it on board without having to tell the story of the infamous 8 LB bass that came off at the boat.