How To Spool A Baitcaster Reel

Hey folks, Glenn May here with BassResource.com. And today I wanna show you how to put line on a baitcasting reel. It's pretty straightforward but there's a few gotchas that can get you here. So first of all what I have here is a Berkley Spooling Station. This I really like. I've had this for, I don't know, a couple decades now. Berkley still makes 'em, you can get 'em on their website, you can get 'em on Cabela's, Bass Pro Shop. What I recommend is see if your local tackle store has it. Support your local tackle store if you can. But anyway, it's real easy to get these things. It's easy to...you just put your reel right on here, put your spool on the other end, and it's easy to load your line. If you don't have one of these, then a real cheap and effective way to do it is just take a pen, put it in the hole of your filler spool, run your line down through your rod, then you put it on your reel when you're ready to spool it. Then I just hold the pen or pencil in between my feet and then I just reel like that. It's a simple holder, it's a little awkward, but it works. But again, I recommend something like this.

So here's how you do this. First of all what you wanna do is take your line and guide it right through the eye of the baitcaster. And then, you see these wiffle spools here? These are perfect. You just stick your line in that little wiffle spool and turn your reel handle just a little bit. Again, you know, with a lotta these reels these days you go, you know, six to one reel gear ratio. If you turn your reel all the way over, your reel handle complete one turn, it's gonna turn the spool six times. You don't need that, just...you just need enough to bring the line around so you can grab it just like I have here. Pull it out, and what you wanna do is is you wanna tie a knot here at the end. Just a simple overhand knot. Very basic.

Once you have that, clip off the tag end. And then you're gonna tie another overhand knot right onto the line that's coming through the eye of your baitcaster. Just another simple overhand knot. Once you have that, pull the line back through the eye of the baitcaster and cinch it down tight. That knot that you just made, acted as a stopper. It's gonna stop right there so that the line doesn't come off your spool. 

Now as an added little measure, what I like to do is take just a little teeny thin piece of scotch tape and I stick it right on the knot that I just made. That does two things. Number one, it holds that line in place. The other thing is that it kinda covers that knot, makes it less obtrusive, makes it easier for the line to go on the reel. So now that I've got that done, alls I need to do is just start winding it on. And it's really just a matter of the tension has to be pretty tight here. Not super tight, but what I like to do is just run my fingers on here just to hold it on here. Don't grab it too tight because you'll burn your fingers after a while. And don't spool it, don't reel it really fast because you can burn your fingers again. But just spool it on, it's that simple.

The key thing you wanna have in mind here is you want line to maintain right in the center of that baitcaster. Don't move the line at all, hold it in place, let the baitcaster levelwind go back and forth and do it's thing. Just hold your hand right in place and don't move with it. It's very straightforward. If you move it to one side or the other, you're gonna pack the line on to one side of the spool or the other. So just leave your hand right there.

Once you get it to just, you know, underneath the spool there, underneath the lip of the spool, you're fine. Don't overfill it. Because if you fill it up too much, what happens is the lever on the baitcaster, it's like a pendulum, you click it down, well the top part moves away, the bottom moves in. And if you overfill it, the bottom part of that thumb bar is gonna touch that line and it's gonna impede your casting. So don't overfill it. Once you get it to, you know, right about there or so, we're good, you're done. Just clip it off, put it on your rod, tie your lure on, and your ready to go.

Hope that tip helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit BassResource.com.