Welcome to Galvman's Fishing Tips

Fishing Rods and Reels

This article is written more for the beginning fisherman/fisherwoman who is concerned with the question "What rod and reel should I be using to fish with? There are so many kinds out on the market." Well first lets break this down into two major types of fishing, freshwater and salt. As for saltwater your gear must be able to handle the corrosive effects. That includes for reels, the outer covering, the bearings, line guides, gears, and bushings. Lets put it another way, anything that can corrode will corrode. A reel should be labeled "for saltwater fishing" or "for some saltwater use". Now I’m not telling you that you cannot use freshwater gear for saltwater fishing but in my experience freshwater gear is not geared to handle the effects of saltwater corrosion. So my recommendation is to stick with saltwater gear for saltwater applications. Not only will you get a quality piece of equipment but it will last you in the longrun. This also applies for fishing rods but there are many rods that use aluminum for guides and pieces of handles. Aluminum is fine as long as it is washed down after every use. You can usually tell when aluminum is starting to corrode, this is when it starts to turn into a white powder sometimes bubbling in places.

For freshwater you don’t have to be so picky, just remember it is always better to clean your equipment after every use. It doesn’t matter if it is for saltwater or freshwater, it is better to have your fishing equipment clean and ready for that next fishing trip you’ve been waiting for. Now I’m not gonna go into how to perform maintenance on your equipment in this article so we will go onto the next step. Baitcasting, spincast, or spinning, which should I begin with? Well this left out fly fishing but the people who are looking to fly fish pretty much grew up fishing the first three. Well leave fly fishing for anther day. Alright well do you know the difference between spincast and spinning? Spincast reels are usually an enclosed spinning outfit such as a zebco, johnson or mitchell. The mechanics are the same but the concept of the enclosed spool is different. You know which ones I’m talking about, the ones for twenty dollars or less packaged with a rod and maybe some tackle and line. Usually you start your kid with an outfit like this because it is so easy to use. Just push a button, swing the rod and let go of the button to lob the bait into the water. The enclosed spool pretty much takes care of managing the outgoing fishing line, keeping it moving straight through the guides and never letting the line pile up at your feet.

A spinning outfit is a little more complex, the spool is exposed and you may have to hold the line on some models with one finger to cast. Now the spinning reel is great for casting a lure or bait that hardly weights anything at all. The same goes for the spincast reel. The line comes off the spool with hardly any friction at all, not at all like a baitcasting model. The baitcaster must overcome the mass of the spool before the line can pay out during the cast. The only drawback to the spinning reel is line twist. As the line is paying out during a cast, for every revolution that the line revolves around the spool a twist is put into the line. Usually this doesn’t present a problem unless you load the reel with a large diameter line, one that the reel is not designed to be used with. If this line doesn’t have time to untwist then after a few more casts later you may have a twisted mess of line snaking through your guides. Usually on a spinning reel you will also have a more complex drag system than the spincast models. Sometimes the drag control will be located on the back of the reel but most of the time it is located at the front and center of the spool itself. What is drag? That is the tension you put on the fishing line to slow the rate of line payout. Well talk about this another time. Like I said before the spinning reel is good for casting hardly nothing at all. Along with the spinning reel is the pole. You can the difference between a spinning rod and a baitcasting rod by looking at the first few line guides closest to the reel. These guides will be oversized on a spinning rod to accommodate the fishing line as it pays out during a cast. What is important in buying a fishing spinning outfit is to match the reel with the rod. In other words you don’t want a large reel on a small rod or vice versa. If the reel is too large the line will pay out and tend to slap the rod blank as it does so. This will reduce the distance of the cast. If the reel is too small you may not have enough line to fight a large fish. If you are unsure, look through fishing catalogs and look at their rod and reel combos or better yet ask a fishing buddy.

Baitcasting, the rod pretty much has the same size guides, a little larger at the base getting a little smaller at the tip. The baitcast reel hold the spool on its side. As the line pays out the spool revolves and guess what, no line twist. But now here is the drawback, once the spool starts to rotate the mass of the spool keeps it rotating, but the line is encountering friction as it moves through the guides. The line slows at a faster rate than the spinning spool and before you know it, you have what is called a birdsnest. A tangle of line all over your spool and it may take you some time to pick through it. Well the manufacturers have helped solve the problem somewhat with a centrifugal brake and/or a knob to tighten to slow the revolution of the spinning spool. The centrifugal brake works the same as a figure skater on ice spinning in one spot. With the arms tucked in, the skater spins at a very high rate of speed, with the arms extended, the skater slows. The centrifugal brake is usually a series of small plastic tubes attached to small poles at the inner end of the spool. As the spool starts to spin the plastic tubes move toward the outside of the spool slowing it, as the spool starts to slow they recede back to their starting positions near the center of the spool. Not all baitcasters have this kind of braking system, some just have a knob that applies tension to the spool which keeps it from spinning too fast. Anyway you look at it using a baitcasting reel takes a little bit of getting used to. The oldtimers just feather their spools with their thumbs and don’t much think about braking the spool, they just do it. A baitcasting reels’ strong point is that you can really horse a big fish since you have the leverage to winch them in. There is nothing between you and the fish but the line itself. On a spinning reel the bail is between you and the fish and that is added friction you must account for. And remember one thing, with a baitcasting reel you must have some weight attached to the line to overcome the initial friction of making the spool spin. Nowdays there are some pretty expensive baitcasting reels that don’t need much weight to make the spool spin but you are gonna pay for that convenience.

Well I hope I helped with the decision as to what gear to buy for the beginner. At least you will have an idea as to what to look for in fishing gear. Remember to fill your spool with the proper line weight, and look at the instruction booklet or the reel itself for the recommended line weights. Pick what is right for your application and if you don’t know, usually pick toward the light side. You will get the ease of castability with just a little compromise in line weight. Thanks for coming!