Fixed spool and braid!

Alright lads, opinions and advice on this.
A good quality FS for clean ground and a braid to go with it....

Is it necessary to add shockleader to braid??

well, yet again, where to begin....

in my honest opinion you cant go far wrong with any of the grauvell, shimao or daiwa fixed spools above around £60 or so.

braid can be fished direct with no shockleader if power casting is not needed, as it could slice you to the bone otherwise!i normally use direct for close work in 30lb, but add a ashockleader of relevant breaking strain if sticking it out a bit.

Well I will be looking for as much distance as I can so I guess a tapered shockleader would do the trick. Any one got any suggestions on models of reel?

I can highly recommend the Mustard centurion about £60. has out lived my okuma akeon and my diawa jupitor. I have this reel over a year now and still going strong. I major cleaning, and regular wash out under the tap. Line lay is good casts well. 2 spools.

Sounds good, I often thought about getting one, does one of the spools come taper specially for braid??

i use a big okuma and 30lbs power pro, it flies out. for float fishing and spinning i use a mitchell MCX 6004 and pp again. i dont think the spools need to be tapered esp for braid. the line lay will be the same as mono

Sounds good, I often thought about getting one, does one of the spools come taper specially for braid??

Not on mine. just two deep spools. Theres a mustad nordic which comes with a tapered spool which is about £20 cheaper.

Where do you do most of your fishing scara??

Where do you do most of your fishing scara??

Around inishowen also do alot on the northern Ireland coast. fish most of the UPC competitions.

The Best Fixed Spool on the market for distance casting is the Shimano Aero Technium XT 10000. It is an amazing bit of kit. The line lay is amazing , 40 coils per upward movement. It has to be seen to be believed.

It RRP is £375.00 but I managed to source it for £230.00. Yes it is expensive but you get what you pay for. As for braid I load my reel with 20lb Berkley Whiplash 0.06mm diameter tied to a tapered shockleader. The results are amazing.

It you want a top quality reel with top performance then I recommend this one.

just on that note...i wondered has anyone using braid on their fixed spools had problems with wind knots etc when beachcasting with it, especially in the real fine stuff.... i mostly use 30lb spiderwire stealth myself, but filled a spool with 20lb power pro a while back, worked fine for spinning and on the boat, but the minute i used it from the beach it was a nightmare! had to cut it etc around 4 times , infact i cut so much from it that its basically unusable again and is getting stripped of tonite!
speaking to a few braid users on the shore they have told me the same thing, for beachcasting to go to a slighter thicker diameter every time to avoid windknots and subsequent tangles.

the technium is some piece of kit alright, seen one of them in glasgow angling centre at the weekend past, cant remember what price tag they had on it tho.

is the musatd centurion and the okuma axeon not basically the same reel with very minor part changes and colour on it?? i ut them beside each other and noticed very little difference....apart from the price tag!!!!

One of the main differences is the Line lay that the Shimano reel has, Many other so called top fixed spool reels lay between 6 and 12 coils per upward movement whereas the shimano Aero Technium lays 40 coils. This means that the line peels off when casting with great ease. The problem with a fixed spool that lays 10 coils per upward movement is that the line gets buried and does not fly off the spool very smoothly which when using a thin braid can lead to problems.

From my personal experience the build quality and design features of shimano reels are light years ahead of their competitors. you definitley get what you pay for.

I recently upgraded to a Grauvell Zeus Z5000. Cost me €120 but it could pull the plug out. It also comes with 3 spools and one of these is profiled for use with Braid. I use 30lb Spiderwire and have had few problems with Windknots once I'd learned to check the spool before and after casting for slack. I still use a leader as braid has a tendancy to snap. Also make sure you give it around 10 turns on the leader knot as teflon coated braid slips on lesser knots.

All in all, I have no regrets going to Braid.

Paul

i personally woulnt pay that much for a sea reel but if you have he money sure why not. the kind of fishing i do a reel costing a third of the technium will catch as many fish