Fly Fishing Reel Which One....?

Again, with the help of Massimo Magliocco and the FFM here are some good advices in order to decide the fly fishing reel which is right for us.

• For small size fish like trouts or graylings, the fly fishing reel is seen more as an "attachment", a secondary gadget to hold the line. So it's also sensible not to spend too much, I would say, unless of course the value of the reel is also as a collection piece. But of course for larger size fish like pikes, salmons, steelheads and salt-water fish the importance of a sturdier, more reliable fly-fishing reel becomes more evident.







• So we can divide fly-fishing reels in TWO types:
  1. Light-Weight
  2. Heavy-Weight

  fly-fishing reels




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TIP!

• Handle Position

  Massimo says that in his opinion you should always put the handle on the right-hand side because this prevents entanglement problems with all handling operations from pulling out the line from the reel to the "shooting" of the line.

  When you recover the line by rewinding it into the reel you should get used to pass the ROD from the right hand to the left hand FIRST before rewinding the line into the spool. It might sound complicated but it soon becomes a unnoticed practice to a fly-angler.

  Moreover when you rewind the spool you should do it in such a way that the coils are done uniformely from one side to the other of the reel interior in order to avoid nasty entanglements later on. In fact unlike the spinning-reels with fixed spool which retrieves the line in a nice, tidy way, fly-fishing reels are "center-pin" reels and rotates directly around an axis like - a normal bycicle or chart wheel - WITHOUT helping the coils of the line.

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• Let's go back to the two kind of fly-fishing reels: the "light-weight" and the "heavy-weight". The first ones are used for small size fish, as we said, the latter for larger, heavier fish.

  Now, the "light-weight" ones have a spool which can turn in both ways, clockwise and anti-clockwise FREELY. They are called therefore "single action".

  The "heavy-weight" fly-fishing reels, instead have a mechanism preventing the line to be running away. They have a so-called drag-system which "brakes" the line when the pulling action of the fish begins.

  This mechanism, developed by watch engineer, jewelers and metalsmiths long time ago, also make use of a "Reel Gear " mechanism which help us speeding up the rewinding of the line.

  By every turn of the reel-handle, we spool MORE line back into the reel than in a simple "single action" reel. Thus, the "Real Gear Ratio" is expressed with numbers like 2:1 or 5.5:1 meaning how many complete spool "revolutions" (e.g. 2 or 5.5, the latter meaning "5 times and a half") the fishing reel is doing by EACH complete turn of the handle.

  These reels are also called "Multiple" fly-fishing reels or ""Multipliers".

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• We can finally summarize what we just said and simplify the fly-fishing world in this way:
  • Light-Weight (Small), SINGLE ACTION (e.g. for small fresh water fish like trouts, grayllings)
  • Heavy-Weight (larger), MULTIPLIER (e.g. for salt-water or larger fresh-water fish like pikes, salmons)

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  Now, this is quite schematic. In reality you can find Multiplier Light-Weight fishing reels (i.e. with a gear-ratio, too!).

  Moreover, to complicate the matter, you can also have AUTOMATIC or SEMI-AUTOMATIC fly-fishing reels which have a spring in the mechanism to rewind the line FASTER and AUTOMATICALLY with a simple press of a lever.

  And to say it all, you can even have ELECTRIC fly-fishing reels which use a motor to do the job. And, why not, even ELECTRONIC reels wich make use of the lastest CHIP technology to, well...catch a fish.

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• Now, concerning the DRAG SYSTEM, this can be of different kind:
• No drag at all (e.g. pure "center-pin" reels)
The reel spins freely.
• Spring and Pawl Drag This is the easiest and cheapest way to put "brakes" on a reel. A spring pushes the pawl into a special part of the spool and brakes it.
• Caliper Like in car, a pad pushes against the spool (the "tyre") and creates drag.
• Disc Drag Expensive, but excellent "braking" system on a reel. A disc in cork or Teflon is used to apply a friction on the reel. Many say that cork is the best material for a disc drag system.

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TIP!

• It's easy to understand that light-weight single action fly-fishing reels are LIGHT and SMALL. So, they match very well with LIGHT fly fishing rods. It make no sense to use a heavy-duty fly-fishing reel on a light rod.

  But it could be useful to use a heavier small semi- or automatic-reel on the same rod where for instance high grass and bushes get into the line or when the line is moving downstream and in both situations the line is heavy to rewind.

• Finally, one has to remember that the smaller (and lighter) is the reel, the easier is to have the line entangled. This is why is important to use a proper BACKING: a "bottom" layer of thread or line (of different, cheaper quality) to increase the internal diameter of the reel and so help the spooling of the line.

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• Research in reel technology in the 1980s looked into finding a compromise between SIZE, DIAMETER and ENTANGLING. A solution was to enlarge, widen, the interior of the reel while keeping the same diameter of the axis.

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