Learn To Fly Fish – The Fly Fishing Reel

The fly fishing reel is used in conjunction with the fly fishing rod and fly line. It is a lot different than the fixed spool spinning reel as it has less moving parts and sits parallel to the rod where as the fixed spool reel sit perpendicular. The fly reel is used as a container to hold the fly line as you would expect but is not set up to play a trout the same way. You can wind in line as normal but one turn of the reel gives one wind of the spool where as the spinning reel has a ratio of several turns of the spool per every turn of the handle and can retrieve the line a lot faster. There were a few multiplier fly fishing reels to be had a onetime but I think these are not as widely seen now a days.

The different types of fly fishing reels

• Manufactured materials
• Tension control
• Size and Weight
• Spool quantity

Some reels are made from cheap plastic materials and are ok for beginning or children you also get ones made from graphite which is stronger and then you get ones made from aluminium and other light metals. Obviously the price tag will climb somewhat when going for the better metal ones as they are lighter and stronger.

Most reels come with some sort of tension control from basic click checking to manual adjusting tension controlled reels were you can set the tension before fishing and adjust when playing a trout or fish. There are other options like a finger controlled tension and the like but again these can prove to be costly. As a beginner I would tend towards click to cheap tension controlled reels you can always upgrade when you get more proficient at the sport.

Each fly fishing rod has a line rating written on the handle and this is the guide to your whole setup. For instance the most popular set up would be a 10ft seven weight rod so the reel and line need to match the line rating of seven. Reels usually come in a few sizes for instance 5-6, 7-8 or 5-7, 6-8 depending on the manufacturer. As long as the number seven is on the rated description then it should fit your setup.

The reel set up for 6-8 is usually set to include the fly line of 30 yards and 100-200 yards of backing line depending on the depth or arbor of the reel. When you get consistent in your casting you should be able to cast most of the 30 yards so hence the need to have backing line to extend it plus when you do catch a trout and it decides to run to the far side of the lake you are going to need something to give to it otherwise it’s going to break your tippet and take your fly.

Lastly the type of fly fishing reel your after may contain only one spool but there are other options were they come with spare spools. In some cases this is just a complete spool that is button released from the reel and switched, others are cartridge type in which you remove the center of the reel to replace with another. The cartridge option is usually very cheap as the spools are usually plastic but they do allow for taking several line types to the fly fishing venue and as they are easily switched you can change over very quickly saving time for fishing.