I have a lifelong hatred of spinning reels, mainly generated by the loops that often form in the spooled line and create real messes.
“Whenever you’re throwing that line, there’s no tension to hold it on the roller bearing, so it goes limp and lays over itself,” Delacroix fishing guide Capt. Austin Plaisance said.
But there’s an easy way to remove these knots, the Louisiana Charter Fishing guide said.
“You just pull the main line,” Plaisance said. “You don’t want to pull the loop because that loop is under the main line.”
He said gently pulling on the main line will remove line from the spool until the loop is revealed.
When the loop finally peels off the spool, it can create a knot in the line if it’s not handled properly.
“You have two tag ends,” Plaisance said. “Pull the tag ends and, most of the time, the loop will come out.”
But you have to be patient.
“You don’t want to pull tight,” Plaisance said. “You don’t want to pull (the tag ends) hard against each other or it’ll dig in.”
It’s a particular problem with braided line because of the reasons anglers choose to use it.
“It forms mainly on braid because it doesn’t have any memory,” Plaisance said. “Memory helps on a spinning reel.”
Of course, prevention is the best defense — and Plaisance said there’s an easy way to minimize the occurrence of loops.
“Most of the time they form because you have too much line on a reel,” he explained.
To prevent loops, he adds line onto the reel until he’s just short of the lip of the spool.
“I like to leave a fingernail of space (between the spooled line and the reel lip),” Plaisance said. “You have to have some lip to keep the line from looping.”
