Iron setup

[FlyFishinYakr]

Originally Posted by oneyedeer

How much line you guys put on your reels?

The avg. reels' line capacity is about 250-300. It will kind of depend on what you're fishing for & where you're fishing (open ocean/kelp).

I like 250-300 yds. on my conventional reels. If a fish can 'rip off' that much line he deserve's to go free! : (little advertised tip; if the first 100 yds. need to be replaced and you didn't bring a spare filler spool, use a line winder and turn the line around checking for frays & nicks and reel it back on...top line on the bottom again checking for frays, bottom unused line on top). CAVEAT: if the line is over a year old or coils too much from being too tightly spooled this tip won't work, THE LINE IS TOO OLD/stressed!

Hooked a bluefin off the Cortez/Tanner Bank once and had seen more Angler's with same issues, was trolling 80# w/ an "8 inch jet-head", fish hit the trolling rig, headed south and never looked back. He stripped off 450 yds on my 50W in 2-3 minutes. In a kayak that wouldn't have been a "sleigh ride" more like water skiing. (no icon for Cowboy...YeeeeeHaaaa!!!) Besides not too crazy about reeling in that much line once he's broken off, in this case, when I ran out of line I pointed the rod & "POP"!!! (Didn't bring spare spool of line on that trip fortunately the boat I was on had bulk spools for just this emergency & I reloaded with 100#. .

My fly reels have about 450+ yds. of POWER PRO backing (usually about 400 yds. of PP backing...50#-65#) gives me a better chance of landing a big fish that wants to head to Hawaii (or S. America) once hooked but it is a pain reeling in that amount of line if the fish gets off or having to reel in the fish.
FFY.