Well Good Morning from an incredibly warm and sunny Wolfgangsee!

Sorry about my rant yesterday, it just got my goat!

Anyway, testing done on the new reel and I must say it's a nice piece of kit! I'll leave the report until I publish on the ANGLERDIREKT.COM website, which should be over the weekend.

The whole idea of this blog was to inform and educate, and on occassion be funny (I hope). So today, I thought I'd touch on some of the VERY basics of fishing and fishing equipment, a theme I'll carry on with over the next few weeks.

Reels.

My favourite piece of kit! :-) It's got moving parts! And I love the feel of a well maintained reel!

If you look on the marketplace there are literally thousands of different reels, offering a myriad of benefits and functions, but they all basically stick your bait where you want it!

So which one too buy?

Well that depends on what type of fishing you'll be doing and, of course, your budget!

Essentially there are 3 different types of reel, but within those types there are a thousand and one permutations!

Spinning Reel. This is the one I use most often, and I've got a few! :-) Wether I'm using my Baitrunner for Carp fishing or my Mivardi when I'm looking for predatory fish, this is always my favourite type of reel.

I find them easier to use, a lot more accurate and, well for me at least, generally much more user friendly.

Spinning reels come with either a Front Drag, also know as FD in most literature you'll see on the subject, or Rear Drag, also called RD.

The drag is the means of controlling the retreaval of your line when you have caught "The Big One" allowing the fish to fight you but without putting too much strain on your line, which might lead to your line snapping and goodbye Mr Fish!

With FD you control this drag or resistance with a dial attached at the front of the reel (funnily enough) and with RD, a dial at the rear (duh!).

Which type, FD or RD, is a matter of personal choice. For me its rear drag but thats just me.

Anyway, I do hope this has been useful and informative and that you'll enjoy more of these basic articles as we move forward.

All the best

Phil 'The Fish'
Anglerdirekt.com