SPOOLING UP AND LINE TWIST Winding new line onto a reel has always been a contentious issue. Which is the best way to spool up? Every conceivable variation of winding on has been tried and recommended. Everything from buckets of water, hot or cold, using heavy books as a drag system, extra pulleys and lord knows what else has been suggested. You can even buy professional spooling machines that are really there for convenience to save the poor old shopkeeper valuable time. (“Yeah guv, three Tournaments with spare spools”. “Oh, while you’re at it, spool ’em up for me.”). But in truth these devices are far from ideal. In reality there are only two ways that you can wind line on: A. The rotating mother spool or
You would have thought by now that in all the years fixed spool reels have been available ‘the’ best method would have been discovered. But no, the two camps still remain divided, so I will tell you how Dave Lane spools his Krystonite and how I have always spooled mine. However, before we discuss winding techniques we must understand and recognise what line twist actually is, and how it is created. Fact: True line twist is created by anglers and not by the mono manufacturer. Twist can evolve from two sources: A. From the terminal tackle or Tie a free revolving spinner onto the end of the line without a swivel, cast and retrieve it a few times and you have a perfect example of true line twist. The spinning lure without swivel is the fastest way to form twisted line. Modern day fixed spool reels also contribute to line twist, but in varying degrees. Twist from the reel is, again, manufactured from two areas. One, from the rotation of the bale arm on the retrieve, which is slight, and two, from the free running spool on the outgoing take, ie, baitrunner or slipping clutch, which is severe. A number of years ago as an experiment. I used a friend’s home to try to prove that reels did or did not induce line twist. His window was on the eleventh floor of a tower block. The rod tip was poked through the open window, once the coast was clear of passing pedestrians the lead was allowed to descend. To obtain a visual reading of twisting, the lead was painted black on one side and white on the reverse. The rod rings were treated with a proprietary lubricant, which was an effort to reduce friction and hopefully make it an easier passage for any twist to work their way along the line.
Before I am castigated and accused of being a foolhardy hooligan from the politically correct amongst you, a friend was marshalling the landing site to give the all clear. The lead was lowered in three different ways, open bale, back winding and baitrunner. During the descent back winding and baitrunner gave visual proof that the lead was spinning. Obviously the open bale dropped lead gave none. Once the lead had touched base the tip was lowered slightly to illustrate how much twist had been induced. The baitrunner gave the highest degree by a substantial margin. On the retrieve all three gave the lead some degree of rotation but the lead initially lowered by the baitrunner gave by far the greatest. Undoubtedly this was due to the lead unwinding the twist the baitrunner had induced on descent. Line twist becomes evident when a length of taught line is allowed to become slack. The limp line slowly gathers together twisting itself on itself rather like forming the early stages of the wonderful bimini twist.
For those not familiar the knot is like a snake wrapping itself around a branch. The finished knot looks similar to a short section of woven two-ply cord with a further wrap overlapping the twist. As you re-apply tension the twist start to unwind. Once the line becomes fully straightened the twist facets or bruising caused by stress and constriction become clearly evident on the mono.
Contrary to popular opinion when bruised line caused by twist was unwound and tested for its tensile strength, little loss occurred when compared against the original sample. Many different brands of purposely-twisted line were put through trials to evaluate the drop in strength; surprisingly in many cases the reduction was marginal. Only when mono that had been severely twisted (Bimini style) was tested, could a substantial loss be detected. Twist Confusion Do not confuse true line twist with normal casting coils. A number of anglers think that the coils that peel off fixed spool reels are actually a line twist complaint. The coils are indeed twisted line but only very slight, certainly not twisted enough to affect our casting. The coils that match the diameter of your spool are simply a natural physical occurrence that happens with every spinning reel on sale and its something that anglers have learned to live with. Unfortunately they exist because it’s the nature of the beast and until somebody designs a completely new reel with radical changes to the retrieve system, coils will be with us for evermore, unlike centre-pins or multipliers. As you wind line onto a centre-pin reel the line is removed from the revolving mother spool and onto the pin in the same linear manner. As line is removed from the pin for casting it comes off the reel but in the opposite direction, therefore coils do not occur. The line goes on straight and comes off straight rather like a toilet roll. Place the roll upright on the floor, remove paper by pulling upwards and you have coils, however if you are posh, place it on a holder and hey presto it’s straight. I wondered how long it would take for this piece to descend into toilet humour! True line twist happens with every brand of line for a variety of reasons, some of which will be covered later. Methods Of Spooling Method 1 Dave Lane’s way. The Rotating spool As the spool revolves on the surface Dave keeps the tip in close contact to it, about 18 inches or so. Often he has to chase the spool with the tip as it revolves and skitters on the surface. He purposely winds at a steady pace, which is slow enough to stop the spool from somersaulting and tumbling over, that would only put unnecessary twist into the line. Dave’s line is leaving the same side of the spool with that side of the spool always facing him, from start to finish. When I asked him was the water important his reply was “”No, but its better than me having to run down the bank chasing the damned thing!” Dave does not believe that the water has any mystical benefit to the line; he simply uses the water to act as a buffer giving him a nice amount of drag and control for the job in hand. You can use Dave’s method solo with a bucket of water, or with assistance from a friend who holds the spool mounted on a pencil and applying tension as the spool rotates. I have the utmost respect for Dave, as an angler he is truly in a league of his own, his achievements over the years have left many in the shade and who am I to argue about Dave’s method of spooling. However we all have our own favourite ways of doing things, so for what it’s worth here is mine, which I have used for donkey’s years and never had problems with. Method 2 My way. The Static spool Place the spool of mono on the floor label up or down, at this stage it does not matter. Thread the line through the rings and connect the line to your reel or backing. If you do this at home or you are cramped for space you only need the butt section of your rod, just as long as it has a ring on it. Now put your rod down because you are not ready to wind just yet. Simply remove by hand a short length of mono so that it trips over the flange of the mother spool. As it peels off note its direction, is it clockwise or anti-clock? If the direction of the departing line matches the same direction as the rotation of your bale arm when retrieving, it is correct, you can now start to spool up. If the line peels off in the opposite direction then turn the mother spool upside down. Once you have turned it over 180 degrees the departing line will now track the route of the bale arm. Once you have the correct set up hold the rod butt with the eye immediately above the mother spool and commence winding. When winding on using the static spool the first thing you notice is the line tripping over the flange, coils are coming off the spool! To many this is an alarming sight; surely straight line coming off a rotating mother must be better than coils? At first glance you would think so, but bear with me. When we wind line onto the reel with somebody assisting you by holding a pencil through the mother spool, it rotates, the same as placing the spool in a bucket. The line departs from the spool in the same manner it was wound on. The mother spool simply rotates. That is perfect if you are winding line onto a center-pin or a multiplier because that’s the way it should go on, with no twist whatsoever, but with spinning reels, well that’s a different story… Reel Spinning Problems The problem is that spinning reels wind the line on in a totally different manner. Instead of linear vertical rotation (have I got that one right?) it is a sideways rotation. The line comes in as linear and then at the last second is switched or bent at right angles to a horizontal plane. The clockwise direction of the rotor actually puts a twist or coil into the line that is coming off the mother spool in a linear manner, albeit slight. To some this piece may seem to be getting a little complicated, after all winding line on should be a simple affair. Well it is, but maybe if you try this simple little test which only takes seconds you will understand why many prefer to wind their line on using the static spool…even with coils. Go over to the spool sat on the floor and do something that is very important. What you are about to do will illustrate how the rotation of the bale arm can reduce or increase how much true line twist will end up on your reel.
With finger and thumb hold the line where it comes off the spool and lift your hand vertically over the spool so that you force 18 to 24 inches of line to trip over the flange of the spool. Grip the mono on the spool with your spare hand to prevent more coils slipping off. You should now be holding a length of line, which has a number of coils in it. The reason for the coils is perfectly normal; the line has come off the spool in the opposite way it was wound on. Now with your fingers still holding the line slowly twist your finger and thumb in a clockwise direction. One of two things will happen. A. The coils will disappear totally, or If ‘A’ happens and the coils have been eliminated start to wind your line on, your spool is sat in the correct direction. If ‘B’ happens turn the spool upside down to the correct direction. You may now be thinking what’s all this about? Twisting line clockwise. Why? The answer’s simple and this is how it was explained to me. Most spinning reels I know of rotate in a clockwise direction. The coils that appear as line peels from the spool are cancelled out to some degree by the clockwise rotation of the bale arm. The little test you do with finger and thumb shows you the correct direction for the line to exit the mother spool. The line comes off the mother with coils and the clockwise direction of the reel eliminates them. So there you have it. Before any boffin or academic jumps up and tells me that it only works if the mother spool is exactly the same diameter because pieareoblong and asparagus square prove otherwise, well sorry. In the main with most popular reels used today and bulk spools of line it works well enough for me and many others. But that is not the end of the story. Let’s say that you somehow have managed to spool your line with no twist whatsoever, well done, you must have used a winding machine. Shame the line lay you fed on by hand does not match the reels automatic lay! However, here is the rub… From your very first cast your first retrieve will unfortunately very slowly add a tiny amount of line twist. Certain rigs can add to the problem where the swivel is captive, or in the case of a double bait that is not perfectly centred. These cockeyed creations generate an imbalance causing the hookbait to rotate on the retrieve. It happens all the time to river anglers long trotting using double maggot or caster; as they retrieve the hook spins round like a propeller. Fortunately those who use looped hook-links end up with just a twisted hooklength. The knot acts as a barrier preventing to some extent twist working its way further up the line. Those who trot with propeller baits using the line straight through to the hook suffer far more. Baitboats….’Twist City’ Every time you get a run off a fish and the baitrunner revolves the twist is dramatically increased. Worst of all are the guys who use baitboats and baitrunner combined. This combination is ‘Line Twist City’, as the boat sails off in the distance and the baitrunner is turning they develop more line twist than anybody. The more times they send the boat out the more the twist build up. In a single day’s fishing with a baitboat you can build up enough true line twist that a casting angler could only achieve in months. For boat users always use the open bale not the runner, you have been warned!
I first witnessed true line twist on a grand scale when I hooked my first ever bonefish on a freelined shrimp, 12lb mono straight through. These remarkable creatures can rip off over one hundred meters of line against a heavy clutch in a matter of seconds. Backwinding is out of the question. They can hit thirty miles per hour and cover a football pitch in less than five seconds. Once you have managed to get the fish back to the boat it is common for the bone to rip a further seventy meters from you. Often you can expect four or five long runs before you can land the fish. When the line was examined I pointed out its twisted state to the guide, “No problem boss just remove the hook and feed out line as the boat moves”, he said. We towed the mono for a short time and watched as it slowly untwisted itself. This is the same procedure that fly fisherman adopt to untwist fly lines. It is highly unlikely that a carp will ever remove as much line as a bonefish against a drag, in general carp fishing situations severe line twist can only happen with the misuse of the baitrunner. Coils are unavoidable, severe line twist can be avoided with sensible line management. Some types of rigs such as helicopter rigs with tubing and captive swivels appear to encourage line twist. As line is being wound back on the retrieve the twist caused by the rotating bale arm work their way along the line all the way down to the rig. Once the rig is held aloft suspended from the rod tip the lead starts to unwind and picks up speed and spins around like a whirling dervish. Change over to a running lead set up and the problem virtually disappears. A simple alteration to the lead set up allowing the swivel to work on helicopter rigs will alleviate the problem to some extent. Again, I repeat, anglers cause line twist, not the line. Swivels do not constantly revolve as you retrieve. Line twist has to build up to a certain degree before the swivel can function. For the best part swivels remain inert, only working after sufficient twist has built up which then kick-starts them into action. Even the very expensive stainless ball race swivels used by big game anglers do not come into play until sufficient force has built up. Fortunately with modern day monos coils are not a major problem. Due to their lower memory it does not amplify them as much. Stiffer lines such as pure fluorocarbon have much more memory as witnessed by the horrendous line slap when casting. Lines with high memory tend to highlight coils more than low memory lines. Memory does not create line twist. Coils show in all monos but stiffer lines show them more. However, with all coiled line don’t fret; once you tighten to the lead the coils will disappear…unless of course you are floater fishing, and then coils can be off putting. A well- meaning angler once recommended to me a certain brand of mono for floater fishing. “It’s the most buoyant line on sale, cracking stuff” he said. Buoyant? Strewth he wasn’t kidding, trouble was, due to its horrendous stiffness and memory, most of the line was in the air, sat out of the water because the coils refused to straighten! Educating Your Line The best advice I can give to anybody once they have spooled up is to make a number of practice casts using nothing more than a lead. Many brands of line are lively to begin with so make your first practice cast short. Increase the distance on your second cast gradually increasing on each successive cast. Make about 5 or 6 casts then you are ready to tie your rig on and start fishing. What you are doing is educating the line to the correct tension as you retrieve. The chances are that when you wind on new line for the first time the tension is not going to be absolutely perfect, usually too much or too little has been applied when winding, so using just a lead educate your line with a few practice casts and then it should behave as good as gold. Never wind new line on using excessive tension. Many reel spools today are made from graphite. Although this material is light and strong excessive tension will crush the spool especially when low diameter lines are used. If you wind ten wraps of line around your finger it may feel tight, twenty will feel uncomfortable and thirty unbearable. The thin graphite spool will take hundreds of wraps and every turn of the handle increases the crushing force. A Shimano 10,000XT baitrunner will hold over 500mts of 12lb Krystonite so you can imagine the extreme force being applied. The amount of pressure being applied when spooling should be similar to the resistance of the lead and rig being retrieved. So don’t grip the line too tight when winding on line otherwise it could be expensive and cost you a new spool! To conclude I do not believe there is such a major difference between the two methods of winding on. Thousands of anglers continue to use each style. If there really was an obvious advantage between the two every line manufacture in the world would recommend it, but they don’t. What is blatantly obvious is that anglers are responsible for excessive twist. Good line management combined with awareness goes a long way for trouble free angling. The reason I have given you two methods of winding is not a cop out on my part, but a little test for yourself. Try Dave Lane’s way on one reel and try mine on the other. Whichever method you feel gives you the best results then stick to it for the future. Sorry for the length of this piece but I have tried to cover as much ground and information as possible. Incidentally the clockwise method was given to me a long time ago by a physics professor who was also a very good angler, I have used it ever since. But who am I to argue with Dave Lane, a brilliant angler and a smashing bloke to boot. I am extremely proud that an angler of Dave’s calibre chooses to use my line even though we beg to differ having our own preferred methods of winding it on. I hope by writing this piece that my own personal views can be proved totally wrong. I live in the vain hope that some brilliant mind out there will come to our rescue and give all of us a foolproof method, which will totally eliminate coils and twist, etc. But somehow I doubt it. FOOTNOTE When I sent the original piece to Graham he said to me “Dave, why don’t you just follow the direction of the bale arm?” What followed on my part was stunned silence… “Come again Graham?” “Remove the line so it follows the same path as your bale arm” he said. Further stunned silence followed as I franticly searched for a spool to see if it was true. I eventually found one, my desk by now was in total disarray, I quickly did the finger and thumb test to see if it was true..It was!…Bloody Nora..! This was indeed a bolt from the blue! In all the years I have been spooling up using the finger and thumb test, I had never, ever, noticed the connection with the departing line and bale. How many times have I spooled up over the years? Ten carp reels large and small, my river and saltwater reels, plus spare spools? It must be thousands, and all the time it was staring me in the face!As Victor would say “I don’t believe it!” How could I (experienced angler (cough) manufacture) have missed the bleedin obvious? Graham, nice guy that he is, did not take the mickey, he wanted to run the piece as he thought the finger test was highly relevant and explained a great deal on the mechanics of static spooling. So the piece was redrafted to include both method and reasons behind it. Thanks to Graham I don’t have to suffer the indignity of reading all the smart ass replies that would have undoubtedly bombarded the site. “Hey Plonker just follow the departing line with the bale, na, na, na ,nana!” But it just goes to prove the old adage: However experienced you are, regardless of track record, you are never too old to learn. And long may it remain so. Good Luck Dave the plonker QUESTIONS Q. My line is extremely coiled when I cast out, why? Your brand of line is too stiff, or is old and remained on the reel for a long time without casting. Stiff and thicker mono holds more memory than supple mono.If your mono is reasonably supple but still has disproportionate coils you have wound it on using too much tension. If the line is new cast out with nothing more than the lead 5 or 6 times in open weed free water to get the correct degree of tension. When retrieving line through thick heavy weed always pump the rod sea fishing style. Never continuously wind in whilst keeping the rod tip in a fixed position. This puts too much strain on the line, builds up increased memory and the increased pressure could cause the spool to crack. Q. Why do some brands of line have more memory than others? It all depends which recipe they are made from and which process has been used. Pure fluorocarbon is inherently stiffer than normal mono, which is why fly fisherman use it for leaders. Copolymer is far more supple and generally more abrasion resistant, this makes it an excellent choice for distance and many other coarse fishing applications. Good luck to you all, again Dave Chilton, 2005 |
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