Please help me understand my latest purchase

[Weeds]

Hey Folks, I am hoping to take advantage of your collective knowledge. This afternoon I picked up a second hand rod and reel, both in great shape, but I'm not exactly sure what I've got. The reel is an older Penn 209 levelwind (1993) and the rod is short and metal, maybe 5 foot, has only 2 eyes plus a strange spring like thing at the tip, kind of like a doorstopper. It's a Shakespeare something, part of the lettering is rubbed out but I can make out BWB 1155. The reel is spooled with actual wire (not leadcore) and I have an extra spool of the stuff. Strange stuff. ....So anyways, is this basically just a trolling reel and rod? Should I get rid of the metal line? What's with the crazy spring tip? Does anybody out there use one of these reels as part of an actual casting outfit? Does this reel offer any advantages over my abu C3 (which I am very happy with) or excell in any particular situations? I have a few baitcasters but nothing this large so if anybody has any opinions/advice (good or bad) on this equipment I'd really like to hear it.

Thanks, Ross

[Sinker]

Its a wire line trolling set up. For getting your line down deep. The spring tip keeps the line from cutting a groove in the rod tip. Tie on a leader of fluro and troll with it.

[ecxstriper]

you can cast with it . I have a levelwind for casting on one of my surf rods but I'm throwing 3>5 oz of lead plust the weight of my bait. I'm trying to cast 200yrds and the levelwind gets me the closet to that mark

Edited September 1, 2007 by ALEX

[Smokey]

Sinker is right. It's wire line set up used for long line trolling usually for trout. The wire runs deep in the water eliminating the need for lead core or a down riggers. Impossible to cast with wire line on it but could be converted overed to mono and a stiffer rod for casting if you wanted.

[Weeds]

Interesting. Thanks for the responses. I can't imagine fighting any kind of big fish on such a short stiff rod, must be horrible! I may replace that metal line, the concept of of a birdsnest made of metal is really frightening. The idea of trying to cast 200 yards is pretty appealing; what line do you have on there Alex? The reel looks like it has some pretty serious capacity, anybody know how many inches of line retrival it would pull in per turn? I understand that the gear ratio is very low.

Edited September 1, 2007 by Weeds

[ecxstriper]

I use 30 lb 300yards of power pro and 15 lb mono for backer . My rod is a 11' surf rod .

 

 

try and watch the lead sinker

Edited September 2, 2007 by ALEX

[Weeds]

Cool. That looks like quite the chuck!

Could I leave the wire line on and use it as backer? There is probably about a half a spool of it on currently.

[Tacklebuster]

About 35 yrs. ago, oops, my dad had a similar setup, he would use it to troll for lakers. He had a Penn real on it and before we had downrigges we even used it for salmon on LO. The idea behind the wire, was the diameter and the weight of the wire would get your lure down. The wire line he used had these beads (which might have been solder) placed ever 5'-10', or so, so you knew how much line you let out. While trolling you would have to use the rod to add action to the lure because the weight of the line hampered the action of the lure. He would use lures such as Williams whitefish, hammered or half and half because they were heavier and provided the most action, and sometimes with a cowbell. Older versions had reals that looked like the pully of a clothes line, lol. He had a slip on Simcoe, and the owner of the marina liked to go fishing for lakers. He only used a wireline setup, and there were plenty of occasions he outfished us with our riggers and fishfinders.

[douG]

We still use a couple of those setups in my family. I remember the satisfying thump thump of the spoon as the rod was brought forward while trolling. The spring at the rod tip is there to reduce the work hardening of the steel line. Another tip is to let a few inches of line move through your rod every coupla minutes so that you aren't continually bending the line at the same point.

[Muskieman]

Keep the metal line!!! add a leader fluoro preferrably..

for every 100' ft of the line out your lure is 20ft down.. works great for lakers.

don't even attempt to cast with it... if there is no line counter on your rell you may buy an in-line counter for 'boot 20 $...the spring is there to prevent kinks and to not wera a groove in your eyelet..

[Weeds]

Allright guys, I want to say thanks for all the replies; I know it's not equipment that alot of folks are familliar with. Sounds like it would definately make for a good trolling set up in the right conditions, I'll keep the metal line but I still want to know if I can spool the remainder of the spool with different line and take a shot at using it as a baitcaster. Tell you what, I will, and I'll let you know how it works out, and then we'll all know! Thanks again, Rossco.