Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Trolling reels

Time to replace my trolling reel. Set up a couple rigs for new fishermen too. I'm considering a reel with a counter on it. Will be used mainly for Kokanee and Macks. Looking for suggestions from those that use them. I'd like to keep it under $100.00 per reel.

Thanks in advance.

I've got two of the smaller Daiwa Sea Line line counter reels that have been used a lot over the past seven or eight years. I've never taken them down for maintenance and never had a problem with either one. I think they sell for around a hundred.

Okuma makes a line counter reel for sixty dollars at Bass Pro. I don't know how good they are but I have one of their spinning reels I've used for surf casting that's been a good reel.

A dozen of us spend 10 days in lake trout camp every summer and we have tried a lot of different brands of linecounter reels. We have all settled on the Shimano Takota 300 LC loaded with Jerry Brown line 1.

We must have two dozen of these reels with zero problems and the linecounter is by far the most accurate of those we've tried. Of course, the spool must be near full.

At $100.00, your pretty much talking the Diawa Sealines.
I've used a lot of them over the years, and their a good reel.

Cabela's has them on sale now...

Click for sale..


I like the Diawa Saltists reels for trolling for walleye, but your talking 2X the money...

Bottom ones are Sealines, and top ones are Saltists...

Excellent, thanks guys.

Vern mentioned Jerry Brown line. Do the rest of you have a favorite line and why?

Trolling for walleye on Lake Erie, 20# Fireline..

We use a lot of lead line (we fish as deep as 110', in summer usually about 65') and snap weights.
Dipsy's and other divers to get down too.

My favorite fishing !!

+1 on the Daiwa sealine... I still run the discontinued Daiwa Great Lakes LC 47
Have the drags switched over to carbon fiber, Salists are great have 2 Saltist 30's on the way for wire and dipsys and have 2 Saltist 50's loaded with 10 color lead core

I'll throw another option out there - the Shimano Charter Special. These are lever drag reels - best drag around. No line counter, but the drag is so simple under battle conditions even a cave man can use one!

The charter specials are bomber little reels with plenty of drag. I even have one on my wife's halibut rod. If you run daiwa saltiga line, your linecounter is your line.

I screwed up big time when I bought my TLD. . the sporting good store had two reels marked at $75. I bought one, as my allowance was gone. On the way to the car, I decided this was a justifiable offense, so i went back into the store. The guy in line behind me had just bought the other one! Great deal on one, but stupidity prevented me from a wonderful score!

I also run the discontinued Diawa 47LC's. The older high speed models (5.1:1 gear ratio) They dropped the gear ratio down to 4.1:1 for some reason, not sure why. I love those old line counters though, they work awesome trolling for salmon.