Spining Vs Casting Rods

[Bass13 10]

I was looking at some beach rods in the US and was not sure about the diffrence between Casting rods and Spinning rods. The only diffrence I could see was that the casting rods had more guides. I was looking for a beach rod for big bates and I only run spinning reels wich one would be best for me? Cheers

[urhookedfish 12]

Hi Bass,Casting rods are designed for Baitcasting reels (Overhead reels) and hence have more guides on them. Because you will be using a spinning reel, you need to match this up to a SPINNING ROD.

[Station49 33]

I only run spinning reels

Then spinning rods are for you.

[thefunkychicken 0]

Gday.The two varieties of rods you're talking about will be constucted differently and use different kinds of guides depending on whether it is designed for an overhead or spinning reel.Any blank (the long thin tube of rolled fiberglass or carbon graphite fabric that is the rod) has its own "backbone" - actually some can have two. The backbone is the natural strength (or weakness) or the blank to tend to want to bend one way more than the other. Without getting too far into it: a backbone will determine which way a blank naturally wants to bend and if it is made to bend another way than intended (ie- not along it's backbone), the rod will end up wanting to twist in your hands when under load.Finding a blank's backbone is one of the first steps when a rod is being built. I would be willing to put money on the fact that a lot of lower and mid range rods that are massed produced these days are assembled without even the slightest thought towards the blank's backbone. Higher end rods or those made by a good custom rodbuilder SHOULD always have had the backbone found and the rod built accordingly.An overhead or baitcaster rod will have it's guides aligned on the outside curve of it's natural backbone (obviously because the line is going to run along the "top" of the rod). A spinning rod is the opposite: guides along the inside curve of the backbone as the line is running "underneath" the rod.One other difference that's easily spotted is the kind of guides that are used. Spinning rods will have guides are "taller" or "higher" than batcaster guides. Often baitcaster guides will be of the "double foot" variety while spinning guides are often single footed on light rods but double footed on heavier rods.Confused? Excuse my ramblings - I can be a bit passionate about such topics. There's no smoke and mirror tricks: just go into any decent shop and tell them what kind of fishing you do, what kind of reel you use and they SHOULD sort you out with a good rod to suit your needs.Cheers.

[Bass13 10]

Thanks everyone for your help