My 10 year old son and I are designing sort of a themed rod as a project to work on together. He wanted the Mudhole Project X spinning seat, but the thing is, his fishing skill is only at the spincast level (he has a Zebco 33). So the idea is to put the spincast reel on the spinning reel seat. Does anyone have any experience with that?

I feel that it will be a functional rod but my main concern is the lack of the trigger, because the reel will of course be on top like a baitcaster. I do understand the purpose of the trigger, but at the same time I can picture fishing without the trigger.

Thanks for any comments,
Jason



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2015 05:54PM by Jason Reddick.

Hi Jason,

I have several friends that fish baitcaster reels, not specifically spincast, without the triggers, and they have no problem. I think the triggers help, but aren't necessary.

Sounds like this could be a rod to use as a transition to spinning reels, but that is of course your call...but a nice spinning reel for Christmas sounds great to me!

Take care,

Chris

Here's another idea. mock up the rod with tape shims. Let him try casting it with both a spinning seat and a cast seat and see which he actually does better with. Of course, he may just want what he wants regardless of how well it works for him, but I'd let him try both.

............

You might also consider one of the under spin type reels for him, and then make the transition to the regular type spinning reel.

Ron Weber

Or, build it as a spin rod from the start.
If a regular spin reel is not right for him, try an "underspin" trigger style closed face reel.
That way he can move up to a regular spin reel in the future.

Best wishes,
Ron Schneider
Schneider's Rod Shop
Mountain Home, Arkansas
[www.schneidersrods.com]
mtnron40@yahoo.com
870-424-3381

Thanks for the comments everyone. I actually like the idea of the underspin reel that a couple of you recommended. That is the heart of the matter - its not really the reel seat but the guide selection that will determine the long-term fate of the rod. If I he sticks with a Zebco 33 that means he will either continue to use a spincast or ultimately switch to baitcast when he gets older. I learned baitcast pretty young but I was a lot more motivated about fishin than he is.... It kind of depends on what he thinks, I will have to run it past him, though we don't have any of those underspin trigger reels. If he goes that way then he can ultimately transition to a spinning reel which is a bit easier to learn than a baitcast.

Jason

Jason, I wouldn't be too worried about your son transitioning to the baitcaster. My son has been using one of my older Citica's that I have dialed down fairly tight on a 7' Castaway that I got from Lance at Swampland since he was 5. If you work with him and be patient I think you will enjoy the rewards. Now so as not to be misunderstood my son is now 7 and can get pretty close to targets that he is trying to cast to but would not be considered accomplished by most! He is far more accurate with his spinning rods that I've built for him. The biggest problem he has is getting the hook set properly when not using live bait.

Tom

Jason,

When my kids were younger, I had them out in the boat with me fishing.

After about the 3rd malfunction of one of the spin casting reels, I asked the kids for their rods.

I took the reels off of the rods and pitched all of the reels just as far as I could from the boat and vowed to never have another reel of this sort in my boat. It has been true to this day.

I went out and picked up open face spinning reels and worked for about an hour with each child until they got casting down perfectly.

They never looked back and none of them had any issues with the spinning reel. I think that the youngest one was about 5 or 6 at the time and it has been just fine.

Be safe

If the rod was a 2 piece you could do a spiral wrap with a bumper at about 90 degrees. Then you could do the static load on the upper section. Then in the future, if you decided to use a spinning reel you could exchange larger guides for the first couple of guides, and turn the top section to align with the handle.

You might want to make sure there is enough handle behind the reel to place his other hand to steady the outfit while pushing the button.