Spinning or bait casting? And why?

[Alan]

I personally use a spinning reel set up, but I am curious as to the benefits of using a bait casting reel? Is is just personal preference, or is their actually a benefit of using a bait casting over a spinning reel? Or vice a versa?

[Ralph Wiggum]

I fish with my baitcasters whenever possible. No line twist is huge, plus I can cast way more accurately and I think you get better power from a baitcaster (pulling spinnerbaits with a spinning reel kind of sucks). Spinning reels are much better for light lures, though, and you don't have to deal with backlashes.

[chief]

Alan,

Spinning combos excel for light line/light lure combos. Since a spinning spool remains stationary, you have only the weight/momentum of the lure pulling line off the spool. As the lure slows, so does the speed at which the line comes off the spool. Since your line has no real mass/momentum, it slows and stops at the same rate as the lure. Hence, no backlashes.

However, the cranking power of spinning reels is measurably less than that of casting reels. This is a simple matter of physics. With these reels your primary crank force is transfered, and , therefore diminished, from the gear case up to the revolving drum and bail. These items wrap the line around the spool, but they're using indirect, or secondary, power/force. As a result spinning is not the ideal way to retrieve large lures, or lures with a lot of water resistance. It is, however, the more sensible way to deliver smaller lures and lighter lines. Super lines have changed the game somewhat, but spinning gear is best used with line weights at/under, say ten pound test.

Baitcast reels employ a direct transfer of force from the handle to the spool. The spool, then, retrieves line directly. This process is much more powerful, and, as such, is less affected by heavy lines and lures. Therefore, casting excels with heavier, bulkier lures, and with heavier lines.

On the other hand......casting reels disengage the entire spool prior to the cast. As the lure is traveling through space, it rotates the spool faster and faster. In this case the spool doesn't slow as the cast nears the end. In fact, the spool doesn't know what the lure is doing. It's only operator intervention--via the thumb, combined with mechanical and magnetic brakes on the reel that slow and eventually stop the spool.

There's a learning curve with these reels (I bet you could become decent at it in an hour, and great at it in a weekend), but they are the way to go for any application requiring line in excess of, oh, say twelve pound test.

P.S. Ninety nine percent of baitcast control is through an "educated thumb". High tech, high priced brakes and controls are wonderful, but they are utterly secondary to your thumb.

[Scott K]

I have a question about bait casters, my only grump with them is, that I havent seen one with a handle on the left side, do they make them? I have been using spinning reels since I was a kid, handle on the left side, so if I have to reel in someone elses pole with the reel on the right side it is totally backwards for me, Im not comfortable with it, otherwise I would use a bait caster. Do they make them with the reel on the left?

[Kyle Sandberg]

Yes they do make them. If you get a catolog from wherever they will have a hand next to the reel and say "left hand available". Not all do but they are becoming more popular. I think they are the same price or about 5$ more.

[Scott K]

Thanks, I will check it out.