I have just got a Shimano 6.6ft carbomax baitcasting rod and a Cabela ZX tournament baitcaster Lefty reel. All reels here in the UK are left hand wind. I have loaded the reel with 12 pound test 0.26mm diameter line. I am a complete newbie to this kind of fishing so please bear with me. Most fishing in the UK is for bottom feeders. We have quite a few Pike, Perch, and Zander. Thats about it for predatory species. Most reels here are what you refer to as spinning reels. That is what i am used to.

I tried the setup yesterday on a local lake. After a few backlashes and a few birds nests i finally got used to the reel. However i am finding it difficult to cast the same distances that i could with a spinning reel. Is this normal?

The lures i am using are spinnerbaits and weighted shads. Between 20 and 25 grammes. If i use one of my standard reels i can cast these lures much further.

I did try to use a lure that only weighs 10 grammes. I can only get approx 20 feet distance with this lure. What sort of distances are you guys getting from say casting a Rapala minnow rap that only weighs just over 5 grammes?

Am i using the wrong kind of lures for this setup?

It is harder to get those longer distances with light lures with a boatcasting setup as opposed to a spinning setup.   Normally, I will use my spinning setups to throw smaller lures, less than a 1/4oz as BP72 mentioned before, and 1/4oz and greater lures with my baitcasting setups.  That being said, my best advice is to use your spinning rods to throw downsized lures and your new baitcasting setup to throw the heavier spinnerbaits and such you may use.  Keep practicing and you will get the hang of throwing lighter lures with yer baitcaster, but you wont get the distance you will with the spinning reels.

This is a thread we keep as a "sticky" in the "Important Topics" section in the top half of this section:

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1151590913

BTW,

Welcome aboard!

Thanks guys. That was very helpful. Being new to baitcasting i presumed that there wouldn't be much difference but obviously there is.

Which lures would you recommend that have a decent casting weight yet stay quite close to the surface. Many of the lakes local to me hold lots of Pike but are quite shallow. Most of them dont go deeper than approx 8 feet. Lures that go too deep end up scraping the bottom and get covered in weed. Its a sure fire way to lose a lot of lures aswell.

Definitely topwaters- floating plugs and buzzbaits.  I'm not really familiar with pike fishing so I'll leave it there for someone else to finish.  Good luck with the new set up!

inline bucktail spinners always produced pike for me....run em just under the surface so the water "bulges"...plus they are heavy and will cast nicely on your casting gear

Cliff

I'll have to look into buzzbaits cos i dont know what they are. Pike are the main Predatory fish here in the UK. We also have Perch but the biggest perch i have ever caught is 3 lb 9 oz. By perch standards thats pretty much a fish of a lifetime. Its very rare to catch them over 3 lbs.

the Pike here reach 40 lbs but a fish over 20 is considered a specimen fish.

I got the baitcaster cos i tried this type of fishing on a recent holiday in Florida. I used a spinnerbait and i hooked a 9lb Bowfin. I was watching some of the Bass guys picking the fish up by their mouths. I did the same with the Bowfin. Ouch! it clamped down on my thumb. I wont be doing that again, no wonder they are sometimes called a dog fish. lol.

here is just a random site i found where you can get mepps bucktails...just do a seaarch and you can find them....also they are really easy to make and probebly alot cheaper too...hope that helps

http://www.thornebros.com/muskie/baits/bucktails/bucktails_mepps.html

Cliff

Welcome to the forum!

Well, it is only a matter of experience and balanced tackle. About a year ago i was starting to use baitcasting and I was getting desperate! Today, I only use spinning for trout and light sea fishing - all my bass and zander fishing is done using baitcasting.

Check the sites / threads offered by other members, and you will learn a lot. But keep in mind, practice, practice, practice, and even more practice makes perfect!

BTW, if you want to experience largemouth bass fishing in Europe, don't worry! If you check the international section of the forum you will see that there is some great bass fishing in (among other countries) Portugal, Spain, France, Cyprus, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy... And I know that there were a couple of introductions to the UK as well in the 1950s (but I don't know if the bass still exist there).

Welcome to the forum !

The "performance" of a baitaster combo is factored by how well "in-tune" the components are. The major player is the rod; it has to load near perfectly with the weight of your lure. Just to give you an example: it would be difficult to cast a 1/4 oz lure with a heavy or XH (power) rod and 20lb line( suppose you have a decent reel), because the rod will not LOAD UP with that weight . So I hope you chose your rod with the aproximate weight of the lures in mind.

A classic lure for pike would be SPOONS. If it's weedy, go with the weedless sort, like the Johnson  "Silver minnow".

"Practice makes perfect"

I went out to my local lake again today. I am really getting the hang of baitcasting now. I didnt have a single backlash today. I changed the line to 0.14mm diameter 12lb and that helped me a lot to get better casting distance.

I only caught a couple of small Perch on a small spinnerbait but it was more about practice.

Disappointing thing about today is that the paint finish on my Cabela baitcasting reel is flaking off. The paint is falling off where i rest my thumb on the reel. Has anyone else had this problem?

Here's a link to an excellent tutorial about casting with a baitcaster, after you read it I promise you will love them. http://reviews.ebay.com/Learning-to-use-a-Baitcasting-or-Casting-reel_W0QQugidZ10000000002050667?ssPageName=BUYGD:CAT:-1:SEARCH:1

The paint coming off on your reel sounds unusual. Try returning it if possible.

Hope this helps...