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A little late to this thread but I will throw in my thoughts. I used to fish convenitonals A LOT. I used them just about eeverywhere and I thought they were the only way to fish eels. I looked at guys throwing eels on spinning tackle as not knowing any better; boy was I wrong! While 99.9999% of what I do now in the surf is in a wetsuit, I can still cast an eel further on my spinners than I ever could with a revolving spool reel (and I tried tham all). Further, convenitonals do not like getting wet. Avets are supposed to be dunkable, and I played around with a magged SX in the surf a few years back, but I still found my spinners to do a better job. I no longer let the fish run when I get a take. I hold the rod tip veery high, get a hit, drp the rod and cross her eyes when the line comes tight. I do not miss any more fish than I used to by letyteing the fish run and probably actually hook more fish as they often dropped the eel before I set in the old days. If there is any sort of wind other than at my back, throwing an eel on a convenional is nothing short of a headache. With a spinner you just punch the eel out there and don't need to worry about a thing.
Unless you are talking pure casting competitions, and even then only in the hands of an expert, today's spinning reels and high-tech rods spooled with braid will out cast a conventional set-up under "fishing conditions" any day.
Now as far as what convenitonal I am still using these days, I have been fishing a Shimano Torium 14 going on 3+ years and absolutely love it. The only time I still break her out is in the breachways of SoCo, and it's matched up to a Lami 1231m. I love that combo when jigging and it works just fine plugging. The reel has been splashed pretty good and keeps going. The bearring on my first one crapped out after getting really soaked a few times, but that is to be expected.
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