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Skill School – Loading Line
Skill School. Getting The Basics Right.
Loading Line - There’s more to putting line on a spool than you might think. Getting this wrong can make a big difference to many aspects of your fishing, from your ability to cast to getting in tangles. So here’s our guide to doing it the right way.
1.) Have the right kit ready when you start. You’ll need: new main line, backing line, scissors, rod butt with ring and two reels – one with a spare spool (with the same or larger capacity than the reel spool you’re loading).
2.) Mount your reel on the seat of a rod and thread your line back down through the eye of the rod, so that the spool of line is at the top end of the rod – this will make it easier to hold the reel and wind on the line.
3.) You now need to tie the new line on your spool. To do this first tie an overhand loop in the end of the line and tighten it up. Snip off the tag end. Now tie another overhand loop using the end of the line over the main line. This will produce a sliding noose. The original overhand knot will stop the second knot sliding apart.
4.) Slip the noose of line over the spool, making sure that your bail arm is open first. Tighten this down on to the spool. Making sure your anti-reverse is engaged on your reel so you don’t go to wrong way, you’re now ready to wind on the line.
5.) Using one hand to wind the handle of the reel, use the other one to hold the rod on the blank above the reel. You can then use your fingers to gently grip the line after it goes through the rod’s guide. Doing this puts tension in the line so that it doesn’t go on the spool loose – if this happens it will jump off the reel and tangle.
6.) How the line comes off the spool makes a big difference to how it goes on the reel. What you need is for the flat face of the spool to be facing the reel – you don’t want the spool of line to spin like a wheel. Doing it this way means the line coils off the spool and on to the reel the correct way without twisting up, which can cause tangles later on.
7.) Wind on all of the line from the spool on to your reel. If you haven’t got enough line so that it’s sitting close to the lip of your spool then you will need to add backing. Likewise if there’s too much line to go on the reel don’t keep winding. Load it until it’s at the perfect distance from the spool lip and cut it there.
8.) If you’re putting backing on then you will need to tie it to the new main line. Because this knot will never get to be under pressure from a fish – if you catch something that takes that amount of line you’ve either hooked a monster or your clutch is broken, so go for a basic knot.
Put the two ends of the lines together, loop them over and pass the ends through the loop a few times, moisten then tighten before trimming off the tag ends. Remember that your backing line is there just to bulk out the spool, so don’t use your best, most expensive line and go for one that’s equal thickness to the main line.
9.) Tied up, you can now reel on the backing in the same way as you did the main line. Keep reeling it on until you get the perfect depth of loading on to the spool. 10.) You are now left with the perfectly loaded spool, but backwards – the backing’s on top of the main line. To sort this out you can either take the spool off the reel and load the line and backing on to the exact same spare spool to your reel, or, if you haven’t got a matching spare spool, on to another reel. If you are loading on to another reel you need to make sure it has the same or larger capacity than the one you’ve just loaded.
11.) Using the same techniques of tensioned winding, load the second reel with the line. You will then need to repeat on to a third reel so that the line and the backing are the right way around (backing on top of the main line) to go back on the original spool where you want the line to be, the correct way round.
12.) Once you’ve made the final loading on to your original spool you will now have a fully loaded reel sitting at the perfect depth on your spool, ready to fish with.
Top Tip How close the line sits to the lip of your spool makes a big difference. Too close to the lip and the line will start spilling off by itself and cause tangles; too far away and your casting will suffer. You ideally want the line sitting a few millimetres from the lip for the perfectly loaded spool.
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