My dad gave me this rod and reel when I started freshwater fishing last year. Prior to this it has been used exclusively in salt. I don't know when he last put line on this. My questions are twofold:
For this rod in particular, does it need to be respooled?
In general, when do you respool braded line?
Secret third bonus question: In the situation where a spinning reel needs more line, do you add on top of the old line or remove everything and start fresh?
Posted by samwise0214
8 Comments
You could pull all that off and load it up with more if you want or since its braid you could tie on to what you have and fill it back up until its about 4mm off the edge. You’ll know when you cast if its too much cause it’ll just unravel real bad- in that case just cut it off get it tight again and do a test cast and repeat until it casts cleanly again. Ill usually run down until my casting distance is greatly diminished and then respool
I wouldn’t respool it yet but you definitely can if you want to, or you could tie a uni-to-uni with the same or at least similar sized braid to fill it back up. It’ll cast just fine. It’ll fish just fine exactly how it is right now too though. It’s totally up to you. I’d just fish this for now if it were mine.
I’m a beginner but i’ve heard that braided line ruins overtime even if you don’t use it, so since the line is old (i’m assuming) i would respool it completely.
My braid will get worn and I can just tell. If I have it on for a couple of seasons, I’ll swap it.
I respool when I feel the low line level is inhibiting my casting distance or if there’s not enough line on there to keep me from getting spooled when fighting a fish (a few time I’ve seen the bare spool through my braid while a fish was taking drag, that’s a scary situation).
Like u/DismalResearcher6546 said, your spool is almost certainly fishable as-is. If you respooled it so it’s full you’d probably notice an improvement in casting performance, but it’s not totally necessary yet.
If you want to try a line/money saving trick, tie monofilament to the existing braid with a double uni knot and fill the spool till its full. Then tie your line off to a stationary object (tree, fence post, etc.) and walk all the line off the spool and cut it from the spool. Walk back to the other end and tie the monofilament to your spool and wind all the line back on under tension. Now you have the exact perfect amount of monofilament backer under your braid without spending any more money on expensive braid.
Swap the line to one that matches what you need. You will have new line and can spool it to the right amount. As far as adding new line, every season I remove about 1/3 of my spool and add new.line with a double uni knot. I like to have unfrayed line. Recently I started adding a 6′ fluoro leader and did not have to add braid, I just swap the leader. If where you are fishing has a lot of rocks, braid will get frayed or cut. A mono or fluoro leader prevents that.
I respool when both ends of the line get trashed. I flip the line periodically. I use soda bottles attached to my handdrill to remove the line. The go bottle to bottle to flip the orientation.
I would fill the rest of that spool with mono, then unspool it to bottle, then flip it to another bottle then back to the spool so its going the right direction.
I think you’re still good to go but you’ll know when you try to cast and the line starts getting hung up. At least that’s what I’ll do