Two-time Hobie Fishing World Champion Steve Lessard of Hobie dealer Pack & Paddle breaks down spinning reel line woes and how to prevent them.
Are you having spinning reel line trouble? This can be an intimidating subject but I’ll share what works for me! In this series I’ll cover mistakes and solutions so let’s get started. The first mistake is improperly spooling the reel. Some guys new to this game especially young enthusiasts get that first expensive spool of braid and it ends up a mess then in the garbage so let’s avoid that with these easy steps.
Step #1: Preparing the Base
A common mistake is to tie braid straight to the spool base and what happens is the entire ball of line spins with lack of grip. First check the reel base to see if it has a factory rubber strip in the spool, if so then move on to step two but if it’s smooth then depending on the line size for capacity you can use electrical tape as a base.
My rule of thumb is heavy braid such as 50-pound and 65-pound fills the entire spool but mid to light braid gets mono backing as needed, so 20-pound braid on a 150 yard spool can fill up two 3000 class reels with about one third of the spool filled with light mono. I said light mono because it lays nice and even also makes a small knot when joining to the braid using something like the uni to uni. I use a standard arbor knot start the mono then spool the line very tight using the techniques I’ll discuss in step two.
Step #2 Tie the Knot
Braid is a funny thing and rules that apply in fishing books need to be broken if you’re going to take advantage of this high tech tool loved by today’s anglers. First, I DO NOT USE KNOTS DESIGNED FOR MONO, so no arbor knot if I’m connecting directly to a taped spool, instead I use a doubled uni now on the mono filler. Pass line through the first large guide on your rod and lay the spool usually label up but more on that in step three. I tie up then cut a clean tag and center both type of lines and get ready to fill with my clean rag and some line conditioner.
Step #3 Check for Loops
If you see or read or even hear of someone spooling a spinning reel with the old pencil through the spool just RUN! I’ve even seen devices sold that hold the spool in the wrong position causing endless tangles. It’s not a baitcaster and the spool is facing the other way so a different method is required. Its explanation can also be confusing with the bail spinning clockwise and the line coming off the filler spool counter clockwise or is it visa versa hmm?
RELATED: Steve Lessard Wins the Hobie Fishing World Championship 6
So my way is simple just drop the spool label up because this is becoming the industry standard and spray a clean rag with the line conditioner and tightly spool about ten to twenty turns and stop. If you slightly drop the rod toward the filler spool and notice large loops or about the same as you started then your good but if you have tight coils that start to kink you may have one of the rare spools filled backwards.
The solution, regardless of brand or if you’re left-handed or like me don’t care if it’s “lefty-loosy” or “righty-tighty,” just flip over the spool and reel in the direction of large untangled loops. Filling the spool with backing is accomplished the same but stop about one third then join the mono to braid. Fill just about to the max while leaving about a sixteenth! Not an eighth like mono for one reason and that’s after fishing with braid it will pack on the reel tight and the overall bulk will seem to shrink but really it’s just packing tight. If you have an uneven fill then a spacer washer may be needed. Make several extra long casts and pull something heavy or use the rag trick and it’s ready.
In the next installment I’ll go over the dreaded wind knot.
