Hi Buddy
I've just done all my reels for the new season. Best advice I can give you is buy a bulk spool of decent quality line then you can load most spools up to approx 1mm from the top. It's usually cheaper to buy bulk spools off ebay. I paid approx £8.99 for 2320 metres of Diawa Sensor 6lb a good all round line for both feeder / method / float fishing. You can always put a lower diameter hook length on if after roach ect............
When I load a reel I put warm but not hot water in a bucket and drop the new line spool in and leave it for approx 1 hour (or while eating my tea) then I put a tin or somthing heavy on top to keep it under the water. Now this is the most important part, put your reel on a but section of a rod and tread the first ring only. Tie the line on with a slip knot and make sure you cut it off close / neatly. Start to load the reel by putting the rod between your legs and then using the hand that is not reeling in to keep the line under a fair amount of pressure but not too much, this stops the line bedding in later if the line is too slack.
Wind in approx 20 handle turns then open the bail arm to see if you've got any line twist if not carry on loading, if you have line twist simply flip the bulk spool in the bucket again reel in another 50 turns there should not be any twist now.
Keep reeling until you've loaded the spool, don't forget that when you've had the line on for a while you can always reverse the line on your reels so you should get two years out of the line
Hope this helps
KevT
