Switch handed???

Most of my time on the water is chasing walleye and crappie with spinning gear. But now I’ve got the itch for more lively catch and release type fish predominately smallies and musky. So now I’m moving into casting rigs and I’m finding that while on my spinning gear my handle is on the left, my Baitcasters feel better with the handle on the right??? I am a strong right handed person and on both I cast with my right arm. On my spinning gear I retrieve with rod in right hand, but with Baitcasting gear I switch to holding the rod with my left hand and real with my right. Is this goofy? It’s kind of messing with my brain.

I do the exact same thing. Maybe more common than we thought?

I am the same way as well. Weirdest thing for me was learning how to pitch jigs and other bass lures all with the reel in my left hand.

I also do the exact same thing.

I use both left and Right handed for casting rods. After 1 season of tournaments it felt natural to do either. The bonus is utilizing your natural characteristic for each. If I’m reeling with my right hand, I tend to burn a bait at max speed, but give up sensitivity.

If I’m wanting to slow down and more finesse fish, I use mu left hand

I do the same.

Everyone has different comfort levels with this. I use my right hand to reel and cast with both spinning and baitcasting reels.

As long as you don’t do this

mplspug wrote:

Everyone has different comfort levels with this. I use my right hand to reel and cast with both spinning and baitcasting reels.

As long as you don’t do this

Ha ha I seen a old oriental lady fishing the river like that not to long ago. My thoughts were wtf, that takes skill

Most of my family and friends that fish are “switch handed” and reel with their left on a spinning reel and reel with the right hand on a baitcaster.

Pug, I actually know a grown adult who has fished most of his life who reels like that. He says he prefers that it that way. And his uncle (by marriage, not blood) reels his baitcaster upside down. I guess they must feel more comfortable reeling backwards. Its bizarre.

One of the guys I fished with yesterday doesn’t fish much. I taught him to not hold the reel that way. I can’t stand seeing it, it’s a pet peeve of mine. It turned out to be a blast even though only 2 of the 5 were avid fishermen and we fished from a wake boarding boat.

It takes time to get used to something. I now own more baitcasters than spinning reels, probably twice as many. I don’t even blink anymore at the difference. But that took time.

Just a thought but maybe it has to do with most people using Zebco-type reels when they first start out fishing. You learn to reel with your right hand and baitcasters have pretty close to the same feel in your hand so it feels natural. If I remember right, it was weird learning to reel spinning rods with my left hand but now I can’t do it any other way. But with a baitcaster, the only way that feels natural is reeling from the right side.

Imo the switch in hand makes sense.

On a spinning reel, you pump the rod to bring in the fish… Wimpy reel design. Dominant hand on rod.

On a baitcaster, you reel the fish in with a rare pump of the rod. Dominant hand on reel.

I cringe Everytime I see someone pump a baitcaster rod like they would a spinning rod when pulling in a fish. This is especially true with the larger fish.

I maintain a fixed bend in a baitcaster rod when pulling in a fish. Spinning reels generally pick up line faster than baitcaster. You cannot reel does fast enough on a baitcaster on the pump/drop like you can on a spinning reel. That’s what makes me cringe… Seeing people let up on pressure while pumping the baitcaster because they cannot reel down as fast.

As with many things, it’s a personal preference. It’s worth experimenting.

I’m right-handed. Growing up, I always used spinning reels with the handles on the left, and baitcasters with the handle on the right. I’ve always kept spinning reels the same way. However, I went a long stretch there using many baitcasters with handles on the left. I was using righties for moving baits (crankbaits, spinnerbaits, topwater, etc) and lefties for contact baits (jigs, plastics, flipping/pitching, etc.).

I had a bunch of 8-year old Curado E-series reels that needed replacing at the beginning of last season. The were getting pretty roughed up, and their resale value was still really unusually high because of how popular they were when they were released. The new Curado K is way better, by the way, and I knew people would soon be forgetting about the E-series.

So I switched over to almost all right-handed reels, with the exception of flipping/pitching. I still have the lefty E-series on those rods. Part of the reason I did this is because I was starting to get really bad tennis elbow in my right elbow from fishing, and I wanted to distribute the strain from casting and hook-setting to both arms. The other part was preference. I really hated fishing moving baits with a lefty reel, and that kind of limited how ‘multi-purpose’ my rods were.

Regardless of the choice, there was some sort of switch taking place when I was casting baitcasters. Either I casted with the right and handed the reel off to my left hand, or I casted with the right with one finger over the trigger and then moved three fingers over the trigger to palm the reel. I could never cast well with three fingers over the trigger; my thumb was too far forward.

I encourage all the righty bass anglers on here to try a lefty casting reel (and vice-versa), because you may really like it, especially with flipping/pitching. An instant after the bait hits the water is when the strike often occurs, and that’s when you’re switching hands. Or you may not like it, and then you lose a few bucks and sell it in Classifieds.

The Zebco theory is one I hear the most. It certainly makes sense, especially why people hold the spinning reel upside down. The thing is a spinning reel has a long stem attaching the reel foot to the body and reeling that way makes it unstable. I also don’t understand how people can hold a rod below the reel seat. Neither looks very comfortable.

Using that logic, one of my better reels that I bought when I started getting better at handling casting reels was a left hand retrieve Chronarch. Admittedly when I started fishing at a young age the standard spincast reel was usually a Zebco 202, right hand retrieve. As I entered my late teens I graduated to standard spinning reels with left hand wind, with my standard casting reels being right handed. After getting the Chronarch it was becoming obvious that the left handed casting reel was awkward to use, not that I could not use it. I started to look at the physical aspects of this. My right hand had 50 years of tighter diameter motion practice while my left hand was trained for 45 years of larger spinning reel retrieve diameter motions. If you are right handed like me try this, take your right hand and rotate it as reeling in a casting reel. Now try that same tight motion with your left hand, it just doesn’t happen for me, maybe it’s because I am right hand dominate yet I just cringe when guys switch my spinning reel handles around…but they are made to do that! I have just decided it was a case of you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I do still enjoy my left handed Shimano Chronarch reel as they say, practice makes perfect!

You touched on an “argument” I always make when people say which is right, to reel with your dominant hand or the other hand. People say they like to hold the rod with the dominant hand/arm for strength fighting a fish and finessing a presentation. I say I always reel with my right hand because your dominant hand is going to be better at going through the range of motion and repeating it for hours without problem. But I think that I could easily train my off hand to repeatedly do the same motion over and over again.

I grew up using only spinning reels. Didn’t get into bass fishing or more “power” fishing techniques until last summer and used a baitcaster for the first time. I much prefer the handle on the left due to using spinning gear my whole life. I think whatever works for you is fine.

FBRM makes a good point about which component is retrieving the fish (rod in spinning, reel in baitcasting). Randy may be onto something with the power vs sensitivity thought

It seems to me most baitcaster and great lake trolling style reels come with the reel on the right side as standard. When I’ve been looking at those reels, you almost have to special order the left hand reel for most models. Most places don’t carry many, if any in stock of left hand reels for those styles. So I wonder if people have been somewhat forced to learn to reel with the right hand on baitcaster style reels, regardless of what side you reel with spinning reels.

For me, I want to hold the rod and weight of the fish with my stronger/dominant hand, which happens to be my right. So I prefer to reel left handed, both in spinning reels and baitcasters/trolling reels.

When it comes to really big or heavy fish, such as sturgeon, halibut, catfish, any sort of deep sea fishing or lake superior trolling, I’ve found I reeeeally dislike having to reel with right handed reels with those heavier fish, which means I’m having to fight the weight of the fish with my weaker/non-dominant hand. It doesn’t make sense to me why one would prefer to do it that way with heavy fish but to each their own!

I am the zebco theory, didn’t get a spinning reel till I was a teenager and I switched the handle over immediately. My buddy spinning he uses left reel and musky fishing he uses right reel. I asked him how he does it and he replied I never really thought about it. I could never reel lefty feels so weird

I’ve fished spinning reels my entire life and baitcasters the past 30-35 years. My baitcasters have always been opposite, right had reel. Never paid that much attention until last fall I asked myself why am I switching hands every time I cast? This is coming to an end.

I bought myself a Tatula SV with left hand reel at the sports show and I’m really looking forward to throwing that. I can’t see ever replacing my 5500C and 6500C unless they sh!t the bed. Ifnwhen they do I’ll figure out which way to replace them. Until then my future baitcasters for bassin and jigs etc will be lefty reel.

My spinning reels for ice fishing are left hand reel, open water spinning reels are right hand reel. It feels natural to me…

I am right handed , use spinning reels with handles on the left , and also use left handed baitcasters . I’m much more coordinated with my right hand and find it easier to work jerkbaits with my right hand on the rod , especially the larger Muskie baits .

Why anyone who is right handed would want to cast with his right hand and them switch the rod to his left hand I have no idea. I use to do it and then bought a baitcaster reel with the handle on the left side. It felt a little odd for about a day. After that all my reeling in with my left hand and the rod stays in my right. Someone once told me that a right handed person has way more sensitivity in his right hand than in his left. There is also the strength part of it. I believe the only reason why right handed fishermen fish baitcasters while reeling with their right hand is because for a long time it was hard to find baitcasters with a left side handle – Not any more. most all baitcasters are now available in both right and left hand models. I think the person who first designed the baitcaster must have been left handed. Do yourself a favor and Keep it simple and do both the same

It seems your in good co. clown,me included.

I’m a left handed person and grew up with zebco reels. All my spinning rods and bait cast rods are set up to reel with the right hand. I cast with my left.

My son, my brother, and my brothers kids all reel with their right hands as well. My grandkids also reel with there right hand, because they are using stuff ive given them and its all set up to reel with your right hand. They are all right handed though. I never looked to see if they are switchers?

I think it’s what you had to use when you first got started and got conditioned. In my case it worked out.

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mplspug wrote:</div>
Everyone has different comfort levels with this. I use my right hand to reel and cast with both spinning and baitcasting reels.

As long as you don’t do this

Ha ha I seen a old oriental lady fishing the river like that not to long ago. My thoughts were wtf, that takes skill

Dude, Oriental is not the correct nomenclature…..