Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Spin cast reels

My son can relate the story from his young days when I calmly took his rod and reel from him in the boat, removed the Johnson reel from the rod, threw it as high as I could into the air, and we quietly watched it arc over and splash into the lake. We then went to shore, headed in to Fuller's, and got the ABU-Garcia.

Edit - I have been advised by the son in question that my mind suffers from old-person's lapse and the good reel is a Diawa rather than an ABU. This correction should be taken into account when reading my previous endorsement as well. In my defense, the rod is an ABU-Garcia.

So the old Johnson reels are junk? Never had a bad Abu in bait caster.

Allow me to make the same suggestion I do for all "kid's first rod and reel" questions. Get them an under-spin / levercast reel and put it on a five-foot spinning rod. Here's one:

LINK

Dat�is a good idea!

I had a Zebco 44 under-spin I liked pretty well until an 8lb catfish tore it up. Looked just like that Diawa if memory serves.

Got several 33's and the odd Rhino, love 'em for small to mid-size fish.

I've got one of those underhand Zebcos somewhere that I'd forgotten about. Neat ole reel..

I like that . Looks to be easy to learn to cast. . The kids are 4 and 5 years old..

The Zebco 33 triggerspin is my wife's favorite. Great reel.

Buy the most expensive spincast pfluger makes. Way better than the zebcos and better than the new diawas too. The old diawas and johnson reels worked best but all the new stuff is crap. Just bought a diawa under spin and its a piece-O-$hit.

A underspin on a flyrod is a panfish catching machine. Awesome for flippin slip bobber rigs in heavy cover for crappie. Try it.

I agree with the old Johnson Century or model 80, or the Abu Garcia 170s or 120s.

Johnson 110A, plus a Johnson 80.


110A


80

I recently noticed a vintage Abu Garcia 505 under-rod spincast reel on ebay, and won it.

Amazing reel. No lever, no bail; just touch the ring in the center of the reel face with your forefinger and the spool releases. The line falls right on your finger, ready for casting.

Then I discovered another innovation. It has a "smart" drag. If you need to lessen the drag - say for a sudden run of a large fish - you just back the cranking handle backwards a bit and the drag reduces itself to a minimum. Start reeling again and the drag reverts to whatever setting you have applied. Genius!

That is slick! I'm not a huge spincast fan but they have their place and I definitely have a spot for a reel like that one. Its crazy cool.

Laugh'n,,, your addicted aren't you, you and rockey both. I have a 1600 and 3600 ambassaduer problem. Hi, my name is Troy and I'm a reelaholic. Problem is I'm even more of a rodaholic!

Not really addicted. But I do tend to use the best tool for the job at hand. I have casting outfits, spinning outfits, spin-cast outfits, fly casting outfits, ice fishing outfits... Several of each, in fact.

I explain to my wife that it's a lot like golf; each situation calls for a different club - or rod.

That's exactly what I tell my wife about rod-n-reels & shotguns! Same analogy to the tee!

Coool old reels. Keep the pics coming!

I would 2nd the original Johnson century and the larger citations. They were pretty nice reels and had smooth gearing. I did buy one of the later ones and they just couldn't match the older ones. The zebco 33 was a good reel in its day and the Abu magics from Garcia were pretty nice reels.