Conventional question

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by numbskull

Just happened to have been test casting a GSB1201M blank this am with an old Newell P220. Seems like they were made for each other. I highly doubt you could find a better conventional set up to fish eels no matter what you pay.

Unless you could find someone willing to part with a Fisher 8720.

[East Tide]

My best casting conventional is a new style Abu 7000 iHSN with a ceramic pawl and ceramic bearing upgrade. It is now my go to eel/plug setup for the canal. I've got it matched to a Lami 120-1M. Personally, I like having the level wind. It's got way more balls than the 6500 and the narrow spool chucks it! Even with 50 lb braid!

Other reels I've owned are multiple style 6500's, Penn 965, 975 and Daiwa Saltist 30LH.

[ken1]

My primary jigging setup for the canal is a custom Abu 7000 prorocket with 5.3/1 gears spooled with 360yds of 55lb Diawa boat braid matched with a lamiglas arra 1261MH. I found the stock 4/1 gearing on my abu to be too slow for the canal. The high speed gearing was done by Mikes reel repair. It took a while for them to complete but I have been very satisfied with the final product. I throw 3-60z jigs with the above setup and found it to work large pencil poppers well.

[tlapinski]

A little late to this thread but I will throw in my thoughts. I used to fish convenitonals A LOT. I used them just about eeverywhere and I thought they were the only way to fish eels. I looked at guys throwing eels on spinning tackle as not knowing any better; boy was I wrong! While 99.9999% of what I do now in the surf is in a wetsuit, I can still cast an eel further on my spinners than I ever could with a revolving spool reel (and I tried tham all). Further, convenitonals do not like getting wet. Avets are supposed to be dunkable, and I played around with a magged SX in the surf a few years back, but I still found my spinners to do a better job. I no longer let the fish run when I get a take. I hold the rod tip veery high, get a hit, drp the rod and cross her eyes when the line comes tight. I do not miss any more fish than I used to by letyteing the fish run and probably actually hook more fish as they often dropped the eel before I set in the old days. If there is any sort of wind other than at my back, throwing an eel on a convenional is nothing short of a headache. With a spinner you just punch the eel out there and don't need to worry about a thing.

Unless you are talking pure casting competitions, and even then only in the hands of an expert, today's spinning reels and high-tech rods spooled with braid will out cast a conventional set-up under "fishing conditions" any day.

Now as far as what convenitonal I am still using these days, I have been fishing a Shimano Torium 14 going on 3+ years and absolutely love it. The only time I still break her out is in the breachways of SoCo, and it's matched up to a Lami 1231m. I love that combo when jigging and it works just fine plugging. The reel has been splashed pretty good and keeps going. The bearring on my first one crapped out after getting really soaked a few times, but that is to be expected.

[Zeal]

I can't say what is best but when fishing with many of the older dogs I saw a lot of Abu Garcia reels. *shrug* Just my observation.

Wish I was taught how to cast conventional instead of spinning...but I'll suffer through it :P