Here's when and where I use all three. A slow reel is the ideal choice for most crankbaiting. A reel with about a gear ratio is going to help you get your baits to their maximum depth and also give you superior feel, so you know exactly what's going on with your lure.
My favorite cranking reel is the new Lew's BB1. It's smooth, casts a mile and has a large handle that gives me plenty of comfort and leverage when I'm working a big, deep-diving crankbait. It's a 21st century version of an old classic, and I think it's the perfect cranking reel. Reels with a gear ratio in the neighborhood of are your workhorses.
They get the bulk of the duty with most bass fishing applications, and in a pinch you could do the things best served by slower or faster reels by cranking slower or faster. Spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, swimming jigs, topwaters and most other baits are best served with a medium speed reel.
When I'm spinnerbaiting, for example, is just too slow for anything but slow-rolling, and is too fast — you have to slow down just to keep your bait in the water. A medium gear ratio is just right. In the old days, reels with a gear ratio of or better just didn't have the guts for a lot of bass fishing applications.
They couldn't stand up to hard hook-sets or the heavy torque of fighting a big fish. In the early days of tournament fishing, reels were not sturdy enough to stand up to long-term serious fishing, but today they are.
Not surprisingly, all of these reels have their place, but all reels work best if you match them correctly to the kind of bait you are fishing. Slow reels in the range are often the top choice for anglers fishing deep-diving crankbaits, slow-rolled spinnerbaits and big swimbaits.
The slower uptake makes sense in these applications because they allow the bait to get down in the water column and because during most of the retrieve these baits are fishing in the strike zone or at least what you hope is the strike zone. The gear ratio allows you to turn the reel at a comfortable rate, and coupled with these baits, keeps your offering in the strike zone the entire retrieve.
Generally with these baits, when the fishing part of the cast is done, the bait is close to the boat, and therefore the slow ratio does not delay the next cast much. Medium reels are often referred to as the "workhorses" of bass anglers. Ratios of around or present a wide variety of baits and are often used with shallow spinnerbait presentations, square-billed crankbaits, medium-depth cranks in general, and castable umbrella rigs.
Again, turning the reel at a comfortable rate naturally presents these baits at the depth they are usually most effective. Fast gear ratio reels are the most efficient choice for anglers who are presenting baits at relatively defined target areas, or are fishing a bait primarily worked by moving the rod tip, or fishing baits that are being "ripped" quickly, or using baits that are fished in heavy cover where getting the fish into open water immediately upon hookset is helpful.
Some examples of baits that match well to a fast gear ratio are jigs, big worms, Texas rigs, Carolina rigs, jerkbaits, lipless crankbaits, and topwaters. In the case of worm anglers who may be fishing cover or structure at some distance from the boat, once the bait has been fished through the area that a strike is likely to occur, the bait can be reeled in very quickly, and hence the next cast can be made quickly.
Over the course of the day, that can greatly increase the amount of time your bait spends effectively fishing. In the case of baits that are jerked or otherwise fished in short movements with a twitch of the rod, the fast reel allows instant slack uptake, not only allowing for better contact with the bait, but a better chance to get a firm hookset. Finally, for flipping, pitching and other heavy-cover applications, extremely fast reels are very helpful in horsing bass out of the brush.
The Revo Rocket, for example, brings in 41 inches of line in one turn of the reel. Between rod movement on the hookset and the first turn of the reel handle, that bass has got to move and move right now. For anglers who take their recreational fishing seriously, it can pay to use the best reel type for your style of fishing. You might not need every reel ever made, but you will catch more fish with less effort if you make an effort to match reel ratio to the kind of fishing you love to do.
Give a Gift Subscriber Services. See All Other Magazines. High Gearing HG reels are popular for many lure anglers and allow line to be retrieved quickly when needed. A high gear ratio is well suited to general estuary, inshore and offshore lure and bait fishing. High gearing reels offer a good compromise between retrieve speed and power. Extra-High Gearing XG is designed for anglers looking for ultra-fast retrieve speeds.
XG gearing is ideal for anglers looking to target fast moving fish like tuna, trevally and mackerel using topwater lure presentations.
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