The guide spacing for most bass casting fishing rods is rather wide, and under heavy bending, the line may touch or even go below the blank. Typically, line used for bass fishing is pretty strong, and the duration of the fight is so short, there is not much concern about hurting the line, or the rod. During the fight, the line simply falls to one side of the blank or the other. There may be a slight amount of adding line friction, but not enough to cause line the line to break. There may be miniscule additional line wear, but this is much less than if the line rubs over logs, sand, weeds, branches, etc. The blank is very smooth, and in my opinion a non factor for line wear. With fewer guides, the rod is slightly lighter and more sensitive, though if more guides were really necessary, they would be there no matter the cost, added weight, or loss of sensitivity.

In our opinion, the only scenario where line touching the blank might be a concern is if the rod would be used for light line record setting attempts, such as in salt water applications. At the moment of heavy lift and rotation where the line might want to flip flop from one side to the other of the shaft, possibly, more guides would prevent the line rubbing on the blank, and maybe, reducing a slight amount of strain on the line.

We see this as such a rare and unlikely scenario for bass rods, that adding more guides to this series is not worth the rare hypothetical requirement, or cause for concern.

With our heavy duty boat rods, the blanks are “spined” with the guides up, with spacing to keep line off the blank under heavy load.

For most fresh water fishing, spinning equipment is most popular for really light line is use.