Line counters

[Guest]

I was wondering about line counter reels. Are they really necessary for trolling with planer boards? Or will a "snap-on" type line counter suffice? (as they are much cheaper)
-BAWS

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Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll sit in the boat and drink beer.

[Guest]

I use Daiwa line counters when salmon/trout fishing on Lake Michigan. Frankly, I don't see any advantage over other systems for planer boards. However, I use them with Dipsey Divers so I can return to the same depth after each retrieve.

Lead core gives lengths by color (10 yards) per color. Downriggers tell you how deep the bomb is running (minus "blow back"), line counter reels only do what you can do by counting level wind passes or lengths pulled by hand.

Keep it simple.

[Guest]

I should have clarified. I am only going to be trolling crank baits in Nothern MN with some Off-Shore planer boards. As such, I just can't seem to justify the cost of the line counter reels. How do you you determine the amount of line out by passes of the level wind? Is there a standard? Or is that something I need to figure out for each of my reels? Thx, BAWS

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Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll sit in the boat and drink beer.

[fiskyknut]

Line counters are great asset's to anyone's trolling arsenal, especially if you troll alot. Ambassadeur 6500 series reels put out about 11 feet of line per pass when the spool is full all the way. The advantage of using linecounters will be apparent when you are running a bait back say 150 feet, you then attach you're inline board and send it off the side. You get bit, wind till you can remove the board, after removing board you get the fish half way to the boat and the fish comes off. With a line counter you can just count it back to desired line out length, whereas with a levelwind you will have to wind in all the way to start you're count from zero, unless you are counting passes as you are reeling in the fish, which in the excitement of the fight might be tough to do, I know I could'nt do it.

Fisky

[This message has been edited by fiskyknut (edited 05-23-2002).]

[Guest]

BigA --

In my opinion, I think you are quite correct. For what you intend it would be hard to justify the cost. There are some relatively inexpensive line counter reels, but I've heard nothing but bad reports on them. If you go with Daiwas, you're looking at about $85 to $95 each, depending upon sales and promotions. I can count a whole bunch of level winds for 90 bucks.

[Guest]

BigA,

I also will be using planerboards this year. I bought an Okuma line counteing reel for about $65. Also found a Shakespeare line counter at Wallmart for $8. Haven't tried either, yet, but Just couldn't justify $90/reel. With the clip on, a buddy can troll the other planerboard without the expense.

Rob

[Guest]

Robert -- I don't own one, and I don't like to bash products, but ask an Okuma owner how reliable the line counter reel is before you plunk down $65 for one.

I realize trout/salmon fishing on the Great Lakes puts a whole lot more stress on equipment than fishing walleyes (no disrespect intended), but the consensus among Great Lakes anglers points toward line counter reels that will cost about $100 each. And, those are heavy reels. I'd much rather catch my walleyes on lighter bait casting and spinning gear.

[fiskyknut]

3 of my 4 Diawa SG27's have had the anti-reverse malfunction, cheap 15 dollar fix but the wait on parts took a while, I now keep extras of these parts on hand. Last year I was fortunate to get a couple prototype Okuma Convector series to test out. I like these reels and will be purchasing 2 more before long, and the Diawa's will be going on HSOList. I was impressed with the drag, and these reels have bearings vs. bushings in the Diawas, to me they seem smoother and less sloppy. Long term use will tell the story, but I think these will hold up at least as well as my Diawas have. Now if they would only make them with the crank on the left side I'd be really happy.

Fisky

[chucker]

I have one of the clip on line counters and it seems to work ok. I havn't used it alot, I watched one of the fishing shows and they where trolling for walleye and using the clip on counters with no problems.

It looked like the trick to using these is to mount it as close to first rod eye as possible. I havn't tried this yet but plan to give it a shot this week-end. I will let you know how it goes.

Everybody have a safe and fun weekend.