How far should I be able to cast a line with a baitcast reel.
I have been using spinning reels for over 20 years, but got into using baitcast reels because I am looking into catching bass and stuff. Well, when i cast my line using my baitcast reel it only goes about 20 yrds. Is that usual or should be it be way more? If anyone has any tips or anything please let me know. I have been using a rapala DT04 due to it carrying a little more weight so my cast is a little further.
Twenty yards isn’t bad, friend, don’t be fooled by fishing tales. For the best casters it’s a matter of technique, obviously. Best I ever saw was an old boy in Tennessee who had an unhurried, easy way of putting it out there. He said he had no technique beyond not extending his arm too far forward, and putting his eye on the spot he wanted to cast to; he’d practiced as a kid until where he wanted to and where he got it was the same place. He only stressed to not worry about it. He’d tell me, “Quit chasing skill, Stevie; let it come to to you in sweet time”. And get this: the equipment he mostly used (because it was always in the car) was a Pocket Fisherman. He had the good stuff, but said it really didn’t matter. There was a ninety-foot dock out near the house and I saw him cast that PF many times to the lilys just short of the end, make it eighty-five feet or so.
I have the good stuff too, but I’ve always done as he said and profited by it. I think when people get all frenetic and type ‘A’ about fishing that they transmit that into their cast and retrieve. Fish sense it and bite less. That’s why they say a man shouldn’t fly fish before he’s forty. It’s just a saying, but it means patience and pace, right?
Last example: I was fishing Kitsap Lake every day one summer when I was unemployed, and did ok, but an old man who was always out there would be hauling them in like a trawler. Ate my pride one day and asked him how he did it, especially since I had a nice boat and he was using a $9.95 Kmart inflatable thing. Told me that was where I was going wrong. I did like he said, got a tiny inflatable just barely big enough for me and my son, and threw together a Ford Fender.
Held the pole between my knees, rowed real slow, and started shagging trout left and right, and I mean every 2-5 minutes or so. The natural rhythm of hand-paddling that little boat, along with the Fender, did the trick. Not trying to tell you a fish story, but I got so I wouldn’t use bait if I couldn’t afford it. I sold the Bayliner (needed the money, anyway) and to this day I have a small Zodiac I use, and no trolling motor. That’s it. I’m not Even a world class fisherman but I catch fish when I go fishing.
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