I’m looking to get into trolling for walleye this season. To be most effective I’m sure that I need to get a couple trolling set ups. I think I have the rods narrowed to a 8 1/2 medium action rod but, I’m struggling as to what line counter reels to get. What’s good, what should I stay away from? Do I need to troll lead or can I get by with mono or braid? I’d like to spend less than $150/each as I’ll be getting 2.
I have had issues with a couple diawa sealine reels. They were both the brown accent sealine model. I have a friend that has a couple of the blue accent sealine’s and they have been fine. I have good luck with 5500lc and the tekota have been flawless. The drag system on the cabelas depth master isn’t great but for what you pay they are fine too. For a cheaper reel the acudepth reels are pretty good too.
I’ve been running two Okuma Magda 30 reels with leadcore for 6-7 years now. Not a single issue and were very reasonable.
Line selection would be determined by what depths you would be trolling at. Any thing 20+ deeper water would be when you would be looking at leadcore. Less depth would use mono in various lb test to refine depths. Braid is not as recommended because there is no stretch or “give” although the rod should absorb some and that would depend on boat speed.
For most applications lesser pricey rods are more than adequate. They perform well enough for most any scenario.
Reels, pay more for those as the low end one’s are mostly worthless. I bought a couple Shakespeare line counter combos, the rods were fine but the reels were way off on the counting part! Also if you spool leadcore with line counters there is a specific process on how to do that so that the line counter is accurate when letting out 250 feet of line!
I would say that the best cost effective line counter that I have found is the Okuma Convector. I have fished with them for years and they still perform like the day I got them. I think that I have 8 of them now. If you can’t afford them the Magda will do the job but they just feel cheaply made to me. I am now slowly converting all of my convectors over to the Okuma cold water low profile line counters and they are simply the best line counter reel for the money on the market in my opinion, but they are out of your price range right now.
When i first got into my setups with Depthmaster reels and slowly have been replacing to accudepths which i like and have performed well for the last three years without any issues. I think i had a post on here a few years ago and a few people recommended Okuma Cold Waters. A few months ago there was a sale on Okuma cold waters that i could not pass up on buying. I will say that there is a huge difference when you go to that next step with the overall quality and how smooth these reels are.
The depthmaster rods I have never had an issue with other then when I closed my rod locker on trying to hurry on a tournament. I have depthmasters for both walleye, downriggers, dipsey application and leadcore and am overall pleased.
back to braid/mono/lead. You will have a decent idea on your depths so one of the best tools is the precision trollers app on your phone or if you can get a precision trollers bible from someone. I was very blessed when getting into trolling more and was able to trade a case of beer and a bag of Halibut for a trollers bible. If you decided to go with the lead option there are apps for this or plenty of youtube videos that will explain speed/line and how many ft per color.
I am not an expert but if you have any questions please feel free to shoot me a PM and I will help you out with whatever I can.
I would say that the best cost effective line counter that I have found is the Okuma Convector. I have fished with them for years and they still perform like the day I got them. I think that I have 8 of them now. If you can’t afford them the Magda will do the job but they just feel cheaply made to me. I am now slowly converting all of my convectors over to the Okuma cold water low profile line counters and they are simply the best line counter reel for the money on the market in my opinion, but they are out of your price range right now.
What Ryan said…
Okuma Convectors are nice, but the Cold Waters are worth the extra 20 bucks.
I run flat lines and deep diving baits in 5-15 FOW. From 15-25 FOW I run lead core.
Thank you for all of your input and recommendations. I have read a ton in these last 25 hours. This is what I’ll be ordering: Shimano® Tekota®/Cabela’s DepthMaster® XTR Trolling Combo
COMBO MODEL: XTR864-T/TEK500LC | ITEM: IK – 138519
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
