Trout anglers in New Zealand use freshwater baitcaster reels for casting a lot less than anglers in places like Australia and North America. Spinning reels are much more popular in this country when fishing rivers, streams and lake shorelines, though baitcasters do appear frequently when anglers are trolling on lakes or distance casting for trout, kahawai or salmon that have congregated well offshore.

What usually puts off a lot of beginner baitcaster anglers are the dreaded backlash incidents that occur when casting. These events see a spool of expensive line turn into a bird’s nest of knots and jammed tangles. I’ve been there often and have the line replacement shop receipts to prove it. There are now lots of excellent YouTube posts out there offering visual advice on how to lessen these events, so I suggest to budding baitcaster anglers that they watch the best posts and go practise the art on the water.

I have six baitcasters in my inventory. Three were purchased back in the Canterbury fishing heyday when big sea-run salmon ran the East Coast braided rivers. These reels are largely redundant these days though the smallest one gets occasional use on kahawai. Two other reels are used for trolling for trout when mates invite me out on their boats and the last one is a health-driven recent acquisition.

Over the last couple of years a damaged right shoulder meant I was struggling to use my long cast spinning reel/rod combo without pain. I rectified this by buying a left-hand wind baitcaster reel matched with a 7’2” baitcaster rod which allows me to cast straight using the rod rather than using my shoulder to create oomph in the cast. The reel is an Okuma Serrano and the rod is a Shimano Kaos. The retrieve is also straight which takes strain off the back and winding arm. It makes long casting fun again rather than a painful chore though there are a couple of differences I miss. Spinning reels have a better drag system and no backlashes.

I bought the baitcaster combo mid-winter this year and frankly was not sure at the time it would ever be a regular in my frontline fishing gear. It is now. The only way to give it a fair go back then was to use only this combo over a few trips. I started local on the Clutha River selecting a spot where a tributary entered. The main river was wide so I could really let the lure fly.

My mainline was small diameter 15lb braid with a 10lb fluorocarbon leader. To cast you first need to ensure the brake system and the spool tension is set right. You know it is in the ballpark when you let the lure drop to the ground and it descends slowly. This means the spool will revolve at the right speed when you cast. When the lure is cast your thumb ensures the line is flowing evenly and it stops the spool when the lure is about to enter the water. The lure weight that works best for me starts at 10g and I go up to about 20g. Light lures are better avoided and instead cast on a spinning combo.

I was not a beginner by any stretch of the imagination but still learnt quickly that sloppy baitcasting technique is immediately punished. If your spool settings are wrong, your thumb slips off the spool, your casting action is jerky, you cast into a strong wind, you cast with too light a lure, or you do not use your thumb effectively on lure splashdown, then you will have a backlash.

In the middle of learning about the combo the rod was suddenly wrenched down and a big rainbow jack leapt into the air. The drag on a baitcaster is not like a spinning reel; it makes no sound and is very easy to have the tension too tight or too loose. Being a left-hand reel it is also very easy to wind the tension the wrong way and that is exactly what I did. I gave the rainbow slack line and by the time I figured things out he was off. When everything was going well I cast easily and made some prodigious distances, all without pain.

My next destination with the combo was Lake Tekapo. Early in the season there is always the possibility of some schooling medium-sized rainbow trout and maybe some landlocked salmon lurking off river mouths. I struck a calm day with a light breeze and began fishing in a sheltered bay. The lures I usually use on the baitcaster are various Toby colours, black or gold wedges, 14g aquifoils, and Shimano and Daiwa spoons. Over the morning I landed several rainbows. I also lost a couple of wedges when small tangles stopped the casts mid-flight and… snap, the lures just kept on going well out into the lake. This issue is more common with baitcasting than with spinning and shows the need to have your thumb lightly controlling the revolving spool so the line doesn’t bunch up.

My most recent trip with the combo was back on the Clutha River. On this visit I wanted to use softbaits on the combo but they needed to be heavier if I was going to avoid the backlash. I needed to increase the weight to about 10g for casting purposes. I decided to attach a small Mustad Fastach weight to the end of my leader, thread a long unweighted hook on to the weight, then thread a softbait grub on to the hook. It cast like a bullet and later in the fishing session a moderate-size brown trout hammered it. More antics with this rig are in the pipeline as long-distance casting is so easy on the body.