Texas Gulf Coast Fishing

Information About Fishing Reels

There's a wide variety of reels out there to choose from and there are quite a few manufacturers making them. They come in different sizes and shapes. Fishing wouldn't be very exciting if there wasn't a wide variety of reels to fish with. You wouldn't want to reel in a Croaker with a 9/0 Penn big game reel, or try to catch a big "Smoker" Kingfish with a Zebco spin cast reel.

There are 4 types of reels that most fishermen use to catch fish. They are:

• Closed Faced Spin Cast Reel
• Open Face Spinning Reel
• Bait Casting Reel
• Conventional Fishing Reel

The Spin Cast Reel is by far the easiest reel to use and I recommend it for a beginning fisherman's first reel. It is ideal for smaller fish, it's lightweight, and can handle smaller terminal tackle very well. Plus it's not too terribly expensive if it's lost.
The Open Face Spinning Reel. It is a little more difficult to use than the Spin Cast, but it comes in a wider variety of sizes. It comes in ultra-light models for smaller tackle used to catch panfish all the way up to a big bruiser used to catch bigger gamefish such as "Bull Reds" in the surf. It's very useful for situations when a longer casting range is needed. I have an ultra-light model mounted on a fly rod that I use to chunk small jigs a long ways when I'm bank fishing.
The Bait Casting Reel is more difficult to cast with than the spinning reel, but it comes in a wide variety of sizes, and can handle a lot of abuse day in and day out. There are models for light-weight use, and bigger models for catching bigger fish such as Redfish and Kingfish.
Last, but not least, we have the conventional fishing reel. Conventional Reels don't lend themselves well to casting. They are bigger, handle lots of fishing line and are just tough fishing reels. These reels are built for the big bruisers, such as Marlin, Tuna, and Shark.

The most important thing, is to get equipment that is best suited to your abilities for the type of fishing that you plan on doing.