Have you ever tried fishing with electric reel?
This is a bit while ago but while we were in Japan trip, we also had a charter fishing with electric reel.
We usually do lure / jig fishing therefore had not had a chance to use them. But now here is a chance! So we went out and tried them.
Electric Fishing Reel, the Common one for Bait Fishing on Boats
The fishing we tried in this time, is the bait fishing from the charter boat, at Ise Bay, Mie Japan.
That was early May, and good season for snapper with live prawn, as skipper told.
In Japan, using electric fishing reel is general for boat bait fishing, so that you can place your rigs and baits to exact place where fish are. Also, unlike game fishing, you just need to keep the same / similar depth of where skipper says while bait fishing, and also you will need to place down the bottom, then pull up to change the bait, then down… repeat & repeat, again & again, to the same depth each time. So electric fishing reel is very useful to get rid of miss range, tiredness by repeating to drop / pull up from deep sea.
Most of fishing charter boats in Japan usually has their own battery that you can use to your electric reels, so you just need to bring your electric codes to your reel and connect, so you don’t need to worry about flatten battery. Otherwise, better to bring own battery.
How we fished by Electric Reel
The rig we used is very normal bait fishing rig – down sinker shot rigs.
The rig can be bought in local fishing shop, which is called “UtaseMadai”.
This rig has 2 – 3 hooks tied on the main leader line, but the length of the line from leader to the hooks are a bit longer than we normally use in Australia.
Those lines have about 1 – 1.5m length from leader, despite the one we use only have 20 – 30 cm. This long length can make live prawns live longer and make them active in the sea, as told.
Normally the down sinker rig has a big sinker on the bottom to get the rig down to the bottom as fast as it can be, but what we used is just size 3 – 5, on the depth of 20 – 30m.
When we got to the fishing point, skipper then started to scatter baits into the sea.
Then we placed prawns to those hooks, and dropped the rigs.
While dropping we keep checking the depth by the electric fishing reels. And when you feel the bottom, then wind up a bit so it won’t hook the bottom, and wait until you get bites. And keeps the same.
When you get bites on the bottom that can be easy with normal reel as well, but this time, we did not get many bites on the bottom, so we decided to stop the rigs 10 m before the bottom. And now you can only do this by electric reels, or reels with counter. You may also be able to do this with marked braided lines, but you need to keep remembering which colours you have on your reels, and which colour is what length, and when you keep wind up / drop down it could be way harder to remember.
Stops the rig 10 m before the bottom, wait a bit, then release 1 – 2 m, and wait. When you get the bottom, wind up 5 – 10m and do the same. In this time, this method actually worked well.
Interestingly, we used a bit heavier sinkers on our rigs such as 6 – 8 sizes, as the current was a bit strong, but the one caught 89cm snapper, only used size 4. The skipper and he told us that the bigger size snapper can be a bit higher range than small ones are, and smaller sinker can drop baits more natural, so placing rigs to the depth slowly using light sinkers can get bigger fish.
Electric Fishing Reel Impression
For us, as conclusion, the biggest strength of electric fishing reels is, as you can see easily, it’s fully automatic to drop / pull up rigs. Especially for deep sea fishing, this can be a huge merit. We all thought it is very useful for bait fishing. And also, they are really strong, that even worked well for middle size kingfish.
You can even adjust the reeling speeds jut by lever switch, so it will not reel too fast or too slow.
However, if the battery is flattened, that then turns to just a heavy reel, so extension battery is essential for day tour fishing.
And now, lots of interesting electric fishing reels are coming on sale in this year from big fishing brands.
They also have some features to do even slow jigging or TaiRaba jigging.
Especially TaiRaba fishing, the even speed reeling is most necessary thing to achieve and those electric reels are very suitable for that requirement.
And even for jigging / slow jigging, that can be a strong weapon if when reeling one pitch jerk works well. if working action is more random / combination of slow / fast pitch jerk, then it won’t be the one for you though.
But in those situations, electric fishing reel is a nice option to have.
New Electrec Fishing Reels from SHIMANO / DAIWA
SHIMANO Force Master 600 / 600DH
New electric fishing reel from SHIMANO is the new size of Force Master – Force Master 600 / 600 DH.Line capacity is 33lb ( 2go ) – 300m, 54lb ( 3go ) – 200m (based on SHIMANO Power Pro Boat Game), max reeling power is 46kg. 600DH has double side handle.
This is especially designed to adjust speeds and clutch speedy and quickly just by one hand when needed.
Touch Drive is the pressure sensor switch to adjust reeling speed, which can small and very easy to touch.
Speed Clutch is the cluch lever which can turn on / off clutch quickly.
Not too big, but strong, and quick speed adjustment – you can use this for lots of fishing.
DAIWA SEABORG 200J-SJ
This new DAIWA’s electric fishing reel is especially designed for bay – slow jigging.
All the features and figures of this reels are optimised to slow jigging – the handle is similar to DAIWA Saltiga, and adjustable in 85 – 90mm with compact body.
Fall break dial is the break system that you can adjust the strength of fall break by thumb.
Jog Power Lever is the reel speed adjusting lever switch that is placed at the centre of the reel, which is inline of clutch lever to spool, where your thumb always is.
Everything is for jigging – however you can either use to bait fishing and electric TaiRaba as well.
Electric Reel Game Fishing Movies
Here we also introduce you some of game fishing by electric fishing reels such as electric jigging.
