New Straight Line Reels/Combos?

[Banker]

I am a firm believer that everyone should toss their spinning reels away and get the new fly style reels like the ones our new sponsor Ice Tech sells. What is everyone else's experience with this "new" yet ancient technique?

[futurestrader]

I really like the one that loads to the side of the rod!  Also done with braided line go flouro

[slabslayer]

I've tried one of my Orvis No. 4 fly reels on the ice this year.  For crappie/panfish it's great, love it.  For walleye though, I use my baitcasters on ice rods designed for those types of reels.  For big fish I don't trust spinning reel drags, especially in the freezing cold.  P.S. I agree on the flouro, its all I use anymore except for a couple specific bass presentations. 

[snowcone]

after using my black betty on the ice , im thinking of mounting it on one of my 7 ft trout rods  with the power pro 5 lb blue ice  and blue gill fishin with it, im sure it would be fun

[HardWater Junkie]

They are all I use for panfish. Made the switch from schooleys to fly style reels 2 years ago. I have the a few of the new model and old model frabill 101 reels and a couple genz straight line. Im looking to add a few standard black betty and 6061 next season. Also would like to get a few of the new eagle claw straight lines. I have heard nothing but great thing about how smooth they are. One of the biggest things I learned is to fill your spool completely. The more line you have on the spool the more line you will will retrieve each turn. Instead of wasting a huge amount of good expensive line I save all of my old line that I took from respooling other reels and use it as backing. Make sure you put plenty of good fresh line on so you wont have to depend on that old line when a big slab starts ripping line. Ive tried fly line as backing and it didnt work to wel. My 1 and 2 lb. mono would catch in the gaps in the fly line and I lost a few good fish when the mono got hung up and snapped. Kind of like on the schoolys when you would have the stopper pin in and a big fish would peel line and you couldnt get the pin out in time. I normally only use my straight lines for panfish jigs. If Im using spoons I use my HT 6bb accucast spinning reels. I use 4 or 6 lb. vicious mono with a 1-6 lb. floro leader depending on conditions. When fishing spoons im not to worried about line twist. I tend to get bigger bycatch fish when fishing spoons so its nice to have that heavier line and faster retrieve to pull in those whiskered walleye and carp. I will never drop a jig on anything but a straight line rig though.

While im thing of the HT spinning reels I want to highly recommend them to you all. HT has a bad rap for producing super cheap chinese junk that fails quickly. The 6bb accucast are awesome though. For 16-18.00 you can not beat them. I have taken them to hell and back for 3 seasons now and they work just as well now as they did when I bought them. The drags are super smooth on them and I think they are better then the much more expensive Pflueger President reels I have. I love how the reel is angled toward the rod instead of being straight with the rod. It really helps out on ice rods with the first guide being closer to the reel then on a long rod. I have 6 of these reels and they all preform flawlessly. If your in the market for new spinning reels I would recommend you check them out. You can buy a few of these for the price of 1 high end priced reel.

[OIM]

I have been using fly style reels for many years thinking its been 12 years now. I remember a nice long chat with a very well know ice pro on wamplers lake when they spot one rigged up on my hand made sight rod. It was the 1st time he had ever seen it. He is now promoting the use of them pretty heavily.

For years the thing I struggled with was finding a light fly style reel that had a good drag system. The major draw back then with that combo at that time was that all the quality reels where metal. Holding a metal reel all day in the temps we fish in sometime during the winter can her brutal.

Now we have three different styles of these reels;

Center Pin which includes the Ice Tech Razor(The Original drop below the rod style), Black Betty from 13 Fishing and the newest to the market the Code Blue from No 8 Fishing Tackle. We also can forget maybe the oldest Center Pin reel the Schooley Del Mar Reel AKA the Schooley.

Next would be the Raft Style reels;
13 Fishing with its Black Betty 6061 and the Eagle Claw reel of last year where the first to bring this to market here in the states. Frabill has added one of there own to this group of reels with the 261.

The next is the classic fly style reels and this group has started to split also;
1:1 Gear Ratio
Frabill, Clam, HT, and Ice Hopper all offer something in this grouping.But there is two companies that started the split in this cat at the same time. And they both went in slightly different directions. The only most people know about is the Frabill 241 which is a geared fly reel that is metal. The other was from Ice Hopper which is called the Tight Line Extreme which is a smaller framed reel and is made out of graphite. Since then two companies have released similar reels to the Tight Line Extreme but they are made of metal.HT and Beam are offering these.

For me my personal choice and my go to now is the Tight Line Extreme from Ice Hopper. It has a nice compact frame that fits nicely in my hand and the gear ratio is perfect for almost all the ice fishing I do. The drag system is smooth. I like to fill mine up with 3lb test, and depending one what lure or technique I am doing will be Fluorocarbon or Mono.