Beginners Advice on Fly Fishing Reels
One of your other pieces of kit as a Fly Fishing beginner or new entrant, not as critical as the rod or the line, in my opinion. As with all else, you have a choice of quantity and quality in today’s market along with a price. There are so many good products out there but I am going to just concentrate on the three or four ones below as they cover all the need of an angler and are good enough to do the job in my opinion.
One of the first things you will need to decide is to match up the WT rating of your Fly Fishing reel to the rod, in other words, WT7 or 8 rods should have a Wt 7 or 8 reel and line so that it can take the appropriate line.
If you are going to go still water fishing, small or large, i’d say Wt 7 is the ideal line and the weight forward as opposed double taper. It just gives you that much more power to get the line our. Hence I would go for a Wt 7 or 8 reel to match the line.
Most reels are now made aluminium or Graphite based with the interchangeable spools being plastic. This means it takes a short time to move from line to line when you are fishing . You can get just one reel and add three or four spools. If are you are going to go for two rods, I would advise against it if you are a beginner or new entrant you will need two reels, stick with one. The Fly Fishing reels are now reversible, it is easy to swap them from right hand to left hand or vice vera.
These below listed Fly Fishing reels are my take on Beginners advice on Fly Fishing Reels, this is a personal take and not criticism on all the other products and ranges that are there but merely some simple guide to how you Beginners and New entrants to Fly Fishing can make some informed decisions. By all means have a good look around and shop around from different sources, ebay or retailers.
Fly Fishing Reels-Some examples
Greys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPkdzfjqknE)
A very good solid market member and very popular, the GTS500, comes with three spools. It’s a reliable reel and a solid performer all round at around £55.
Wychwood
Wychwood Sla reel again comes with about three changing spools and retails at around £80 is another very good reliable and performing reel.
Airflo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkkY03KznUk)-I have had a variety of reels from leeds, Shakespeare, Vision and now Airflo, they have all done the done the job fo me. I would recommend either the Greys or Shakespeare simply from a cost perspective . Quality wise there aint that much in it to argue about, yes if you’re purist you can go fo for a lamasson that retails for a few hundred or the Hardy or Sage that will well beyond the £200 and the rest. Reels is an area that you can skimp on the price as you just want somewhere to load your Fly Line, and occasionally play the fish on the reel. Most days you will play the fish on your hand, the reel will play no part in the battle other than hold the fly line.
Airflo Delta,Its a good sturdy fly reel retails at around £50 and the spools are around £20 each
Shakespeare
Do the Sigma reel at around £40 with a spare spool and each thereafter is around about £10.
Vision
Do good reels too, I’ve had the Kouma but this is discontinued, there is the Vision Deep for around £50 with a spare spool, spools cost around £35 each
