With open water fishing season just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about your equipment and what you might need (or want!) this summer! So… spinning reel or baitcaster?
Think about it like this; in most sports, when you reach a certain level of dedication and skill, you find yourself trading our your equipment for something new and considerably more difficult to use that also reaps greater rewards.
For inshore fishing, that is undoubtedly the difference between fishing with a spinning reel and a baitcaster. As someone who has fished with both, there are definitely pros and cons to each type of reel!
Is fishing with a baitcaster the end-all, be-all of inshore fishing? Nope. But it can be a major game-changer when it comes to hooking and landing bigger fish.
Spinning Reel Vs. Baitcaster
Let’s run down the main differences between a spinning reel and baitcaster before we start diving into the benefits!
The spinning reel consists of a spool of line that is guided by a piece called the bail up along the rod. As you start reeling, the spool spins and starts pulling the line in. In order to allow the line to move freely, you have to “flip” the bail (this is an integral part of casting the spin caster, too). You can tighten the drag using a knob on top of the spool to make it easier or harder for fish to pull out line while the bail is closed.
The bait caster is a bit more complicated. At the bottom of the spool, there is a thumb bar that you can press to allow the line to move freely out of the spool and up along the guides on the rod. In order to reengage the thumb bar, just start reeling! This reel also includes magnets that allow the spool to spin faster or slower when the thumb bar is disengaged, which is extremely important when casting. There are two knobs to adjust these magnets (one for major adjustments and another to “fine-tune”).
So which one is better? Well, this is typically a personal preference, but there are definitely some key advantages to a baitcaster, especially for a more skilled angler.
Casting – Advantage: Baitcaster
When it comes to casting, the baitcaster is far superior. In my experience, it takes a lot of effort to fling that bait with a spinning reel, especially when you have a longer liter for things like top-water rigs. And if you’re like me, by the time you’ve gotten enough momentum to sling that bait as far as you can, the accuracy is completely gone.
With the baitcaster, it doesn’t take nearly as much force to get the bait moving in the air and because you can control how fast the line unspools in the air, you have the ability to sling it much farther. Within an hour of working with a baitcaster, I was casting almost twice as far as I can with a spinning reel. With a little more practice, I was actually able to cast more accurately, too.
The other thing I love about casting with a bait caster is that you don’t need as much room to cast. This is especially helpful if you’re casting in a busy or crowded area. We are lucky to have a long, wide boat and when there are more than three people, it becomes tricky (and if you’re around me, hazardous!) to cast a spinning reel.
Windy Weather – Advantage: Spinning Reel
I know I just made a big deal about how much better the baitcaster is with casting, but there is one instance where that just won’t be the case. Windy weather.
When you cast a baitcaster, you control the speed with the pressure of your thumb on the spool as it unspools in the air. If spool starts rotating faster than the line, the line can start to tangle on the spool. This can happen with any cast, and you’ll often find yourself quickly smoothing out a tiny one or adjusting your thumb on the spool to fix one, and that’s completely normal. Every once in awhile, though, you’ll get one bad enough that you’ll either spend a lot of time fixing it on the boat, or, *gulps* you’ll have to cut it off when you get home…
When the wind is at your back, though, you can cast like a dream without any issues (and most captains on a boat will situate it so you get to cast this way). If you’re on a dock or stuck casting into a cross wind or wind at your face, this will make baitcasters much easier to tangle and potentially more frustrating than helpful in the end.
The spinning reel, though, is much harder to tangle no matter what direction the wind is coming from. Since it relies on the bait flying through the air to pull the line out of the spool, it’s extremely difficult to birdnest a spinning reel. (I didn’t say it was impossible, though!)
At the end of the day, I would say that this is the major downfall of a baitcaster, but it’s still usable in windy weather if you can get the wind at your back.
Landing Fish – Advantage: Baitcaster
Long before I ever got the chance to learn to cast with them, I have actually landed several fish on a baitcaster. Usually on my husband’s rig while he was fixing mine up!
The ability to let the fish run with line makes for a more flexible approach to landing a fish, especially a big one. When we fish with croaker, I used to miss several large fish because they would start running with the bait before I could flip the bail and give them some space, which inevitably ended with them coming loose.
With a baitcaster, that control is as simple as pressing your thumb down to disengage the thumb bar. And when you want to start reeling, you just start reeling instead of fumbling with a bail. There’s nothing quite as disappointing as getting a huge hit, only to lose a monster because there was no room for it to run.
So… Which one?
If have the time to really learn it, I absolutely recommend a baitcaster to anyone serious about fishing! All of the pros really outweigh the cons. It’s easy to handle, makes casting a breeze, and gives you a little more room to fight that monster fish.
My only caveat to this is that if you’re newer to fishing or haven’t mastered the spinning reel, start there. I know people who have fished most of their lives with a spinning reel and caught monster fish; using a baitcaster is not a requirement for success. The spinning reel teaches you all of the fundamentals and delivers high performance in almost all conditions.
My Finnore spinning reel has been my trusty companion now for a couple of years, and I’m excited for more fishing adventures with my Abu Garcia baitcaster! That’s the beauty of reels; they have one that works for everyone, so you just have to find the one that’s best for you.
Jess and the Outdoors 