The four types of fishing reels are:

1. SPINNING
2. BAITCASTING
3. FLY FISHING
4. TROLLING, CENTERPIN

To the left (click he picture to open up a larger image) is my attempt to put some order.

The reel industry appears to be lacking a little bit of wording and classification unity, in my opinion.

As you can see, the fishing environment sets the correspondent kind of reel (SALT WATER or FRESH WATER) but it can be considered lastly because other parameter can be more important.

What matters is that fishing in salt water puts a major stress on the materials because of the corrosive power of marine waters. Weight comes second probably.

In any case, the size of the reel, the fishing style (spinning, fly fishing, casting, float, trolling, mooching...) and the internal mechanic play a role in cathegorizing the reel family.

In the end, I can even suggest that there are basically only 3 main types of fishing reels and not 4 as stated above:

• 1 - SPINNING REELS

  The reel goes UNDER the rod and the spool is "fixed" while the bail wrap the line in the spool whenn turning around.

  Spinning reels are most commonly used fresh water reel here in Europe, I would say. Virtually everybody on rivers, streams and lakes uses this kind of reel unlike our American friends who often use a baitcasting reel on the same waters.

  This cathegory should include "spincasting" reels which are but just a variations of spinning reels with a "cover" to help storing and retrieving the line (see picture to the right) without tangling the line ( these reels are well suited for children).

  
  
  
  
  

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• 2 - BAITCASTING REELS

The reel goes ABOVE the rod. The line is directly retrieved over the revolving spool. Generally for bigger fish and a little more difficult to learn. Definetely the choice for Salt Water and off shore fishing but also popular on fresh water in the USA.

I must say that I don't see people using baitcasting reels on fresh-water over here in Europe while this kind of reel is so popular in the US that they might call it "conventional" reel...

Anyhow, I think that some Trolling (i.e. you use a boat and move around while fishing) reels can also be considered as baitcasting reels because they are put above the rod.

To the left (the yellow reel), you can see a trolling Penn fishing reel. Because of their sophisticated mechanism, I would not regard them as "center-pin" reels.


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• 3 - CENTERPIN-Like

  This includes all flyfishing reels plus trolling- ,mooching- and naturally the "true" center-pin reels.

  What I mean here is that I suggest that all reels which revolve around a CENTRAL axis and stay UNDER the rod should be put together. The majority of these reels don't have any MECHANICAL DRAG like many SINGLE ACTION FLY REELS. Other reels in this cathegory DO have a drag system but the spool revolves around a CENTRAL axis, still.

  Then, real CENTER-PIN reels (which looks like bigger fly-fishing reels) don't have ANY mechanical drag at all either. They are used for a special style of fishing called Float Fishing.

  
  
  
  

Well, this tells you much about how difficult is to put some order in the types of fishing reels, doesn't it?