Spinning vs. Conventional

[Sweetwater]

In other words, you can't take a spinning rod and simply remove the eyes and put conventional eyes on the same side of the rod. To do a conversion, you have to remove all the eyes AND the reel seat and move everything to the other side of the rod (180 degrees) assuming the spinning rod was tied properly to begin with.

Check the spine (spline) and make sure that the natural bend of the rod is appropriate for the way you would normally fight a fish. The natural arc of the rod should point downward with a conventional reel on top, and a spinning reel on the bottom.

[capecodder]

I started out spinning only but have switched to conv for bait fishing and jigging. The conventional (525mag on a custom Lami) setup lets me throw 4-6 oz plus bait easily and far longer than spinning. Same for heavy jigs in the canal.

I still spin for plugs and eels as the retrieve is so much easier. The 525mag is not levelwind and therefore every retrieve requires guiding the line on the reel manually. No big deal for bait fishing, but for plugging it is not worth it to me as I don't need the distance.

In short, distance and weight capacity are the reasons for me. From a boat, I don't see any benefit to switching to conventional for casting situtations.

[5/0]

Try using a casting reel w/ a levelwind, I don't think you'll lose much distance with it vs. a non.