Let’s wrap up our look at reels with fly-fishing reels.

I will admit I know very little about fly fishing reels, and I am quite biased about spending a lot of money on one unless you are a serious saltwater fisherman, but regardless of how I feel, there are some basics that may help the beginner in picking a reel.

A majority of the fly fishing I do really doesn’t involve a cast in the traditional view of a cast, I mostly use dappling, where you pretty much have just the leader out at the end of the rod. And most of the fish I catch are wild trout under 8-9 inches. I don’t reel the fish in but basically play them in with the line I have out, and any reeling I do is just hand lining them in.

One of the big factors in any fly fishing is the weight of the reel. There is a lot of movement of the rod in fly fishing, and by the end of the day weight can cause fatigue. You basically put just as much effort in your back cast as you do your forward cast so there are two casts to every one of a traditional style of fishing.