Closed face fishing reel advice.

[danfall]

I need to get some closed face reels for my girlfriend and her bunch. I never use them and only use spinning rods. I'm looking for a couple of things: first, something dependable that lasts more than a summer, second, something reasonable inexpensive...any advice is welcome, but her 5 year old is going with the Barbie pole. The other two kids are boys 12&14

[trapperdirk]

Well I just bought a couple of zebco rhino rsc3 reels . I always use baitcasters and spinning reels but was quite impressed with the first one so bought the second one and will be using them on the ice next year . They have 4 ball bearings and are ruggedly built and the drags were smooth at last ice when we were fishing lakers and ling .They also have a baitrunner switch on the side . Casting seemed good too with the heavy line they were spooled with .You may want to look at the one size smaller though because like many things of quality they have some heft .I thought price was reasonable at 39 dollars canuck and from my short experience with them was quite impressed so far . Always makes me nervous when youngins or newbies with gloves on pick up one of my 150 dollar plus reels while icefishing . I will likely use these myself this winter .

TD

[looking 4 a 30]

My boy is 6 and I use the 4' kid pole with a Diawa Silvercast, works great, i think the cost is around $30.