Citadel Posted February 28, 2018 Posted February 28, 2018 Hello Anglers! I'm new to baitcasting and I'm noticing a potential problem with my reel. The other day I hooked into a fish and noticed that as I was reeling the fish in, that my reel wasn't picking up the line as I would anticipate it to. Another way of putting it would be I thought at the time that my line was slipping on the reel. Since then I have looked up ways to stop this from happening and the option I chose was to put a mono-backing then finish spooling the reel with braid. However as I was reeling in the line I got caught on something (I was in my front yard using trees and stuff to help provide tension and measurements for the amount of line to use, this detail is not important though) but I noticed that the line seemed to slip again. Now I believe the other alternative could be that the braid is digging into itself which is causing the "slip" sensation, however I feel like the slip is too great to simply be accounted for by the line "digging in" and I wonder if it is because I have a defective reel. But before I go with the defective reel explanation, I also wonder if it is because since I'm new to baitcasting, that I haven't dialed in my baitcaster properly or whatever I would need there in order for it to function properly. I can cast fine with it, I can flip and pitch alright with it, and I have few bird's nest to worry about most of the time. I tied an appropriate connection knot to the reel itself and then placed some tape on the knot to help. I tried applying a little more tension while spooling. But I just don't feel confident that if I crank that handle on the reel, that I'll actually pick up line to bring that fish in and I can't find any material online that talks about this specific problem! If there is anything you need clarification on, please ask and thanks for your help! Quote
Poolshark Posted February 28, 2018 Posted February 28, 2018 Tighten the drag maybe? What pound test braid are you using? 1 Quote
OnthePotomac Posted February 28, 2018 Posted February 28, 2018 If you are new to bait casting my advice is to loose the braid and spool with mono. I know braid is widely popular, but starting out it can be a PITA. Master your reel and then go back to braid if you wish. I have actually removed it from several of my reels except the frog reel. I am just not all that cracked up about braid. Quote
Super User Choporoz Posted February 28, 2018 Super User Posted February 28, 2018 What kinds of reel? Is it new? Used? Recently maintained, or otherwise opened up? Hard to imagine that braid with backing is still slipping, or digging so much as to be noticeable. Unless, you possibly spooled it particularly 'loose'. If you spooled up with any tension at all on the incoming line, I doubt it's slipping or digging that much, but entirely possible, I suppose. 2 minutes ago, OnthePotomac said: If you are new to bait casting my advice is to loose the braid and spool with mono. I know braid is widely popular, but starting out it can be a PITA. Master your reel and then go back to braid if you wish. I have actually removed it from several of my reels except the frog reel. I am just not all that cracked up about braid. I, most respectfully, disagree with this....all of it...except that part about braid ok for frogging. Quote
JawjaBoy Posted February 28, 2018 Posted February 28, 2018 With the mono backing I'm going with the drag slipping. Probably as easy as tightening it up to fix. 1 Quote
Citadel Posted March 2, 2018 Author Posted March 2, 2018 Oh wow, thanks for all of the suggestions. My notifications didn't tell me that anyone responded! On 2/28/2018 at 10:39 AM, Poolshark said: Tighten the drag maybe? What pound test braid are you using? Yeah I'm wondering if it is the drag, I'll mess with that tonight. At the time I was using 50lb braid. On 2/28/2018 at 4:56 PM, JawjaBoy said: With the mono backing I'm going with the drag slipping. Probably as easy as tightening it up to fix. Yeah I think it is the drag because there was a time when I got the reel, I was messing with it loosening and tightening things when I noticed that turning the handles didn't spin the spool. So I tightened everything slowly until it started to catch the spool again. Maybe I need to tighten a little further. On 2/28/2018 at 10:46 AM, Choporoz said: What kinds of reel? Is it new? Used? Recently maintained, or otherwise opened up? Hard to imagine that braid with backing is still slipping, or digging so much as to be noticeable. Unless, you possibly spooled it particularly 'loose'. If you spooled up with any tension at all on the incoming line, I doubt it's slipping or digging that much, but entirely possible, I suppose. The reel is brand new. It is a cheapy brand "Sougayilang Low Profile Baitcaster" 7.0:1 gear ratio with 18lb drag. I wanted to try baitcasting this year but didn't want to break the bank and got it on sale for just under $30. IF the drag adjustment doesn't work, I do have an Abu Garcia Black Max that I can try out on next since I know those are pretty reliable for the price point. Also it was free so figured why not. As far as spooling up is concerned, is there an appropriate amount of tension I should use? I have been just pinching the line in between my fingers in front of the baitcaster but behind the first eyelet of the rod. I would say I didn't put a lot of tension but I tried not to just let it spool up without any tension. On 2/28/2018 at 10:45 AM, OnthePotomac said: If you are new to bait casting my advice is to loose the braid and spool with mono. I know braid is widely popular, but starting out it can be a PITA. Master your reel and then go back to braid if you wish. I have actually removed it from several of my reels except the frog reel. I am just not all that cracked up about braid. I appreciate this comment and if all else fails I will resort to this. Mono is cheap and can be good to learn on, I'm just concerned with the waters around here having all of the timber in them that I'll snap off and lose all of my baits. I saved up and spent some change on jigs and I wanted to learn how to fish jigs this year! Thanks guys! I really appreciate this and I'll let you know what happens! Quote
CTBassin860 Posted March 4, 2018 Posted March 4, 2018 If you are using a mono backing I would rule out slip due to that. Line dig doesn't cause slipping and is clearly visible. Try to tighten the drag star Quote
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