Wanting some new gear for spider rigging and long lining

[Hammmerhead]

I have 4 12's and 4, 14 footers. Im trying to decide to buy 4 16' footers so I can stagger all three sizes of them from the front for long line jigs. At the same time I would like to use 4 of the rods to pull cranks out back. The big question here is, do I need line counting reels? Its not like they're expensive, but the open face style reels from Okuma or Shakespeare are pretty bulky. I have all small solo reals now and long lining is not really key for them. I do love them for spider rigging, but I may have to covert them all to spinning reels.

In a perfect world, I would have sets of the solo, spinning and open face line counting reels, but I don't need that much spare equipment laying around

[Cray]

Get you some inexpensive bait cast reels, or some size 30 spinning reels. You can hand pull line out in 2 ft increments to measure distance. They work great for all 3 techniques. And don't buy into all the hype about you have to have line counters and all that stuff. I have them because it was a personal choice but caught fish pulling cranks with Baitcasters and bass rods for 20 plus years before line counters becam popular. Neighbor uses nothing but cheap spinning combos from Walmart for pulling cranks. Cast out far as he can,strip a couple good pulls and puts in holder. Catches more fish than I do.

[cnette01]

I have been pulling crank baits and long lining jigs for several years now, and I don't use line counter reels either. Usually just a good long cast will do for me, and I'll let line out if I want to go deeper. You'll get hung up enough that pretty soon you'll know about how deep different crank baits and jigs are running. I do own some line counter reels for hybrid/striper bass fishing, but I don't use them for crappie because they are medium/heavy action rods. For the jigs I use crappie rods from Proangler with spinning reels, and for crank baits I use the same medium action rods and reels that I already had for bass fishing.