Whangler

OP here. Thanks for all the replies guys. Clearly, winding over loose line caused the loop and hence the birds nest when I pulled off line to clear it. That said, when I pulled line off the spool, it quickly twisted and tangled; that was ridiculous. I pulled off all of that new line and discarded it. I bought another spool of line and wound it on the way I learned as a kid: Fed line through the eyes of the rod onto the reel. Ran the line through a phone book to create tension, set the spool of new line flat on the table and reeled it in while the new spool turned as the line came off. The new spool of line went on nice and tight and didn’t twist up when I pulled off some line and let it slack. On another note, I was able to repair the old Penn “greenie”. I was about to toss it out but miraculously found a replacement bail spring! All good. Thanks again. Happy fishing.

This my first time having line installed at a store, I’ve always done it myself by running the line inside of a phone book while reeling it in. Hmmm, bad line or faulty installation, Couldn’t be the reel could it?

While trout fishing out of state in Wyoming last week, my 45 year old spinning rod and reel both failed within one day of each other (Fenwick 5’ rod and a green Penn Spinfisher ultralight reel). I needed a new outfit pronto! The best outfit I could find there was a Pfleuger President 30 and a 6’ Berkley medium light rod. I had the store wind 4# Trilene on the new reel. The line comes off the spool looking like a slinky when slack. If not careful when retrieving after a cast, the line might wind back on the spool over a coil causing a loop on the spool. I couldn’t cast far enough to clear that loop from the spool. Pulling line off the spool in order to clear that loop resulted in major birds-nest so I ended up cutting off a good bit of line each time this happened. Major waste of time. This doesn’t happen with my older reels and line (Shimano Sedona, Penn Spinfisher, Mitchell 302). What might be the problem? Thanks