Fly Reel?

[Trey]

I'm a converted bass fisherman and have heard of people using fly reels to fish for crappie. Do you use normal line or fly line, i'd imagine this is just for close jigging.

[CrappiePappy]

I'm a converted bass fisherman and have heard of people using fly reels to fish for crappie. Do you use normal line or fly line, i'd imagine this is just for close jigging.

When I was a young boy, fishing with my grandparents, my grandfather used flyrods/reels to Crappie fish with He just left the fly line on, and put a hook & sinker on the leader. I now have both of his flyrods & reels ... but, I've got them rigged with a spinning reel & baitcasting reel ... primarily for use as "minnow" rods. If I were to use the "flyreels" .... I'd probably fill them with "backing line", and attach about 50yds of "good" line to that. Backing line can be most any line, from a spool of heavy lb test "bargain bin" stuff ... to the "old" line from some of my other reels. They'd only serve the purpose of filling the spool, to increase its diameter, making it retrieve faster. Since a flyreel is a 1:1 ratio (one handle turn = one spool turn), then you can increase the amount of line that comes in with each handle turn, only by increasing the amount of line on the spool (essentially making the spool diameter "bigger").
The length of the rod would determine whether or not you'd be "close jigging".
I'm sure you'll get some other, differing responses. ........ luck2ya ... cp

[Mo'nBack]

Trey; I use a flyreel on one pole and an underspin Zebco on the other pole and have the exact same normal line on both. I mostly just vertical jig fish. Hope this helps.

[dedfish]

I use a Shakespeare fly rod with normal line (Cajun Line). Some years I put fly-backing underneath the normal line I put on the reel to increase the circumference to reduce the number of cranks I need to reel up line.

I vertically jig as well.