Fishing - Anatomy of a Spinning Reel

Hi, I am Captain Steve Chaconas with National Bass guide Service. We are going to show you how to cast a spinning reel but before we do, lets go over the anatomy of a spinning reel. Pretty simple really, this is a spinning reel, this is the handle. The nice thing about spinning reels today is that I can have the handle on the right side for a left-handed caster, or they going to hold the rod in their left hand and cast and reel with their right, you could take the handle off and reverse it to the other side for right-handed people. The handle is very important, because you just crank, you can crank the bait in anytime you want, you can reel in the line. The most important part of the reel after that is the bail. This is the bail right here, this is wire that comes across in front of the reel. This will open up and when it opens up, it lets the line out, when it closes, it will secure the line. The other part of the reel thats important is what's called the roller bearing; it's where the line will tuck into and will roll up when you reel the reel in. To adjust the spool as far as the direction of this roller bearing, you can turn the rotor, okay. Now the reel, you reel it forward and that will get your line moving, also a lot of reels also have a little switch, down here in the bottom, this little switch will allow the reel either to reel backwards or forwards, when it's locked forward, you can't go backwards, you can only go forward. Thats really comes in handy for certain techniques. Also reels have drag systems, the drag allows line to pull out of the reel, you can loosen the drag, you could tighten the drag. There you pull the line out or you could tighten it make it even tougher depending on the line that you are using. The drag adjustment is located in one of three places, it's either located on the top of the spool, it's located in the mid-spool like this one, or sometimes they are rear drag systems. In either case, before you go fishing, know your line, know the size fish that you are fishing for and adjust your drag accordingly. So, again a quick review, we have the handle which can be switched to either sides, we have the bail wire which releases the line, we have the roller bearing, where the lines goes into so it will wrap around the reel and we also have the drag system and they are located this one in the mid-reel, some of them are located on the top of the spool, and some are located in the back. We also have the rotor which allows us to turn the roller bearing to adjust the position of it and next we are going to be talking about gripping the rod