Do you backwind?

[tikka]

I have never backwound, use clutch .

 

[Keith M]

I know it's just a personal choice but I haven't used the backwind on a fixed spool reel since the early 70's which coincidentally was about the time I hooked my first large fish which decided to pull back and give me some rapped knuckles, or straighten out my hook because I just couldn't release my line fast enough using my backwind LOL.

I use my clutch set fairly light and may adjust the clutch several times during a fight as and when it is needed. This is quite easy to do once you get used to it.

If I need to stop the line being released in a hurry; to stop a fish reaching a snag; Its easy to just clamp my free hand over the spool; and if the fish suddenly decides it wants to take a hike, I can easily just let it go while still keeping it under constant strain to tire it out.

But it's just a personal choice how an angler gets used to playing their fish.

Keith

 

[robtherake]

Every now and then I'll get a hankering for an 80s retro day, which means fishing with reels with antiquated and jerky clutch systems and it reminds me why I was a confirmed backwinder in those days.

I bought a Ryobi Mastermatch a couple of years ago, prompted by memories of a reel that seemed to be everything the Mitchell Match wasn't - it even had its own version of the finger-dab bail and the now ubiquitous skirted spool. Back then (early 80s?) I had the clutch locked up and don't remember ever using it. Just as well really, because it's truly atrocious compared to what we have now; it's jerky and nasty, a proper hook-puller and hooklength snapper; if I'd had to rely on the clutch alone it would have been binned.

Mid to late eighties was when the Shimano Supermatch and Baitrunner reels appeared and since then, with even cheap reels having a reasonably smooth clutches, who needs to backwind? My impression, though, is that backwinding seems to introduce far less line twist than the clutch does. Did anyone else notice the same thing?

 

[peter crabtree]

i use the backwind switch to finely adjust my line's tension when method fishing. Once I've cast out and my rod is in the rod rest, the last thing I want to do is move my feeder whilst adjusting the tension on my line and tip.

 

[S-Kippy]

I'm a backwinder. Always have been and always will be. Its what I'm used to and what I feel most in control with. I've been doing it for so long now I'm not going to change now even if I could...which I doubt. I don't think I lose any fish because of backwinding that id have landed on a clutch but how could you possibly tell anyway ?

Personal choice at the end of the day. Like single handles on reels and seatboxes.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

Another here in the backwind camp - well if I am using my favourite trotting reel, an ABU506M with pawl removed, for which there is no alternative.

However, i do set and use a clutch if i have nice one, as on my two fairly new Shimano bait runners.

Using an old Mitchell 300A barbeling last autumn i almost took the skin off my knuckles several times having been forced to let go of the handle when the clutch failed when good fish powered off hard. I also ended up mashing up the gears too.

 

[Ray Daywalker Clarke]

I also ended up mashing up the gears too.

Potatoes Chub, Potatoes are for mashing

 

[barbelboi]

Ah, but the gears on a 300 are much easier to mash.................

 

[terry m]

An interesting thread, but regardless of you preference, there can be no denying the fact that the clutches on modern reels are wonderful compared to most reels of yesteryear.

My reel education has had very few punctuations:-
1. Intrepid Black Prince. Clutch appalling, that star thing on the front was there simply to stop the spool falling off (IMHO).
2. 70's Mitchells, (Match and 300's). OK when using higher BS lines, but poor and unreliable with the lighter stuff.
3. Modern Shimano's. A brave new world! Light years improvements.

One of the most pleasurable things for me in fishing is being hooked into a decent fish, the rod bending well and the reel giving line smoothly as it runs. Apart from enjoying the fight, appreciation of the good performance of rod and reel is very satisfying.

 

[thecrow]

I backwind, always have always will its habit and coming from a time when clutches were not to be trusted I suppose, have I lost fish due to doing it who knows? its not something that can ever be said with absolute confidence, whatever fish I have lost may have been lost anyway I have seen fish lost when the anglers have done one or the other.
Iit was mentioned earlier about that initial pull needed to get the clutch going has always bothered me and if I do a session where I have decided to try and use the clutch I always end up slackening the clutch off before it starts to come in at whatever pressure I have set it at just in case if you know what I mean.

As long as an angler is confident in doing what they do I don't see that one method is better than the other none are perfect. One thing I do not like with using a clutch is line twist that can happen when using one.

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Paul wasn't claiming they were a great reel, only that they were usable off the clutch if you set them right.

You must also remember Paul that as a nipper the only reels there were available to us were centrepins, which you gained by swapping, trading for some item your mate wanted off you. Split the kipper knife comes to mind for one trade I made Flying goggles were always a good trade for good tackle of the day. These being liberated from Clayton Vale Aeroplane Dump if you had the bottle to brave the guard dogs and the mad bloke who owned it.
How and why there was such a place in Clayton Vale is to this day a mystery to me, but there was. And it was full of stuff post war kids wanted, and if you had it, it fetched the best trades.

A bomb-sight quite easily would get you a near new air rifle off somebody. What the crates of brand new Rolls Royce Merlin Spitfire engines would have got us is anybody's guess....probably a tackle shop! But despite our cunning and ingenuity such thoughts never occurred to us!

But when the BP came on the market it was for us kids, a step into the space age, as they could cast a float right across the canal with ease without having to pull line from every eye and every finger you had on your free hand.

totally agree my BP reel was a gift from my father when I was about 9 or 10 - "bought with the coupons that used to be in Benson and Hedges cig packets

 

[john step]

I really had to think about this one as I do it automatically as second nature.

I set the clutch for any line taken by a lump but flick off the backwind at the last seconds to deal with any lunges at the net and to adjust the length of line out when reaching with the net.

So the answer is both actually

 

[steve2]

If I was trying to back wind on the pike I caught today there is no way I would have kept up with it. Never had a pike fight like it.

 

[john step]

If I was trying to back wind on the pike I caught today there is no way I would have kept up with it. Never had a pike fight like it.

I also have noticed it this year. Maybe its been the warmer water up till now.
Perhaps I never noticed such runs of power before as I don't start piking nowadays until Nov. It used to be Oct.
Perhaps those blokes that pike all year round have a point??
Trouble is there are so many things to go for and only one life.
I really don't know how I found the time to go to work:wh

 

[theoriginalpikeflyco]

I also have noticed it this year. Maybe its been the warmer water up till now.
Perhaps I never noticed such runs of power before as I don't start piking nowadays until Nov. It used to be Oct.
Perhaps those blokes that pike all year round have a point??
Trouble is there are so many things to go for and only one life.
I really don't know how I found the time to go to work:wh

Chasing Pike on the fly from a float tube is my forte so to speak.

I often hear chaps discussing how they have never had a pike take them into the backing line on the fly etc.

I have had an entirely different experience over my Pike fishing career...I've had countless mid double upwards Pike strip my line into the backing at a scary pace. Short, yet unstoppable runs and multiple times in some cases. And let me tell you, when you hook a Pike from a float tube, you can bully them as hard as you want and I do as I like to get them in quick before they become too exhausted, especially in warmer weather.

Those big girls can take line when they want to...no doubt about it!!! I've many really nasty little 'burns' on my fingers from the loose line being wrenched from my fingers.

On topic, I very rarely backwind. I don't know why. Growing up in Ireland, it seemed that few I came across back-winded and I suppose as a kid I followed the advice I was given. I do backwind occasionally as its something I started doing in my teens, just for my own pleasure. But I do find myself slipping comfortably back to letting the drag do the work. But certainly havent suffered for it.

since 'redisovering' coarse fishing I've been playing between the 2 once again as the notion takes me.

 

[daniel121]

Not anymore.

Fishing equipment has technically advanced so much that it's pretty much made backing redundant. It's a skill most older anglers have but one that most of us don't use anymore.

 

[trotter2]

Since I fit the category of the older angler and based on the the fact that I am a closed face reel user. I backwind always have and don't see any point in changing unless I suddenly start fishing for golden marlin off Cape Verde

 

[sam vimes]

I will backwind occasionally, just to keep in practise. However, the only type of reel I'd consistently backwind with is one with a poor drag system. For me, that means if I'm giving a rare outing to one of my closed face reels.

 

[silvers]

Confirmed backwinder myself ....
1. My float fishing reels are still Mitchell 440a, abu 507 and 501
2. I've never even tried to use a drag
3. The only fish that I've had to let go of the handle on was a salmon approaching 10lb that I hooked off the rod end on the stick on the Wye .... It did a lovely ail walk in mid river

 

[trotter2]

I have had to let go off the handle a few times silvers. Salmon, sea trout, big chub and the odd barbel but I have never lost a fish in doing so.
Maybe I have just been lucky.