Reel advice
 

Hey guys- trying to get all my gear in order with a new life-plan and game plan for how often I'll be able to fish and for what.

I'm aiming to hit LJ by yak maybe 3 or 4 times a year with a 1.5day cattle boat trip and maybe a 1/2 day per year. In short- not a lot of water time but I'll live with that. Mostly try to target YT on the yak.

My current kayak setup has me bringing out 2 old reels for most of my work. I tend to like to drift with a greenback out and would like to start doing more jig work, whether it's surface irons or yoyo-ing or SPJ-ish. I paddle blindly without tech, so the more ground I cover and with various methods seems to get the best results.

I have an old Daiwa SG27LC spooled with 20lb braid that I use on a lighter rod for smaller lures, mostly for bass, cuda etc. It works, but retrieve ipt is pretty abysmal so doesn't really work well for any type of jigging. Managed to get a 30#+ YT to gaff (botched the shot and knocked the hook) but not sure I want to repeat that experience with this reel.

My bait reel has been an old Daiwa Sealine LD50h spooled with 65 braid. It works, but drag is definitely lacking which isn't a big issue on the yak but won't work well if I hook up to a YFT on my one trip a year. It's an old style particle board type drag washer that doesn't have a Carbontex equivalent.

Also at my disposal are:
Penn Squidder 140 with 20# mono
Daiwa Sealine 50h with 40# mono
Penn Senator 4/0 113h with 60# mono
Saltist? big, with LD and 2 speed spooled with 80# braid for the big fish
these 4 need work to be usable:
Penn - 113, 113h, 114h, monofil 25

I know I can make it all work for most trips, but everything is pretty dated and definitely feeling the slower retrieves when I try to yoyo etc. I've been thinking of picking up a smallish 'all-purpose' reel that would be my main jigging reel on the yak but could pull it's weight if needed on my 1.5 trip for schoolie size tuna. Mostly have it narrowed down to a Fathom 15 XNLD2 or a Shimano Torium 14. Any thoughts on either of these and/or strong suggestions for another reel? Definitely looking to keep it in the smaller size and price.

Penn fathom
 

The penn fathom is a great choice. I'd go with at least the 30. The 30 isn't that big in size ( my opinion ) and it will handle yo-yo duties on the kayak fine. It will also be able to handle schoolie tuna and larger with the right line and rod setup.

The sealineX star drag line is really quite good for kayak use, but I like to keep a lever drag or two for various reasons.


Among them is an old TLD 5 that was a gift, and a seigler type reel.


I have looked closely at the JX and SX as well, a lot of potential there.

The two reels you listed will be fine. If you plan to jig with it id probably lean star drag over lever for a few reasons: 1. castability although this is minimally different in modern reels. 2. the star drag "on/off" of the clutch IMO is much more convenient when working a yoyo or a jig than engaging a lever is (again IMO).

As far as drag rating goes, you don't need tons of drag even on a boat. Just set your drag to 25-30% of your (weakest) line rating (i.e. if you are fishing 30# leader you would fish 7-10# drag), pair it with a comparable rod (usually a good pairing point is to pick the line class right in the middle of the rod line rating (i.e. for 30# a 15-40 mono or 20-50 mono should be fine, i know daiwa and shimano are starting to rate rods in mono and braid, imo just ignore the braid rating its usually 2x what the mono rating is), feel it out and let the equipment do its work. Fishing your gear at max drag is just going to cause it to fail (especially on a lever drag where you end up sideloading bearings).

Lastly as far as speed of the reel goes, not all jigs are meant to be burned back, many of the popular irons like tady and salas were designed when the penn jigmaster was the popular reel, and that has about 30"/crank. The inches per crank is important but keep in mind that that number is calulated using a full spool, switching to braid from mono on those big reels is going to help keep that number high because your OD on the spool will be larger with the same length of line out. IPC is simply a function of Spool circumference*gear Ratio, therefore it fluctuates as line comes off and goes on the spool and the circumference changes.

Good luck out there man :cheers1:

Penn Fathom 25 has been my daily driver for a while now. Fishing both sport boats as well as from kayak. It’s a solid reel with plenty of line capacity and plenty of drag. Also super smooth and free spool is awesome as well. Spool it with 65 lb braid and you are good to go. It’s light enough that you can fish with it all day, especially if paired with graphite/composite rod.

While most people prefer star drag reels for jigging, I have been using my Lexa 400HD and I really like the fact that I don’t need to get my hand of the handle to go from free spool to set it to gear. Especially when fishing flat falls/butterfly jigs or colt snipers.

Torium is really good reel as well, especially for the money.