How to Choose a Fly Fishing Reel

Answer these two questions and you’ll be able to pick the perfect reel

By Joe Cermele / Field & Stream

Compared to spinning reels and conventional reels, fly fishing reels are rudimentary tools. There are far fewer guts, gears, and moving parts under their hoods. Yet people often perceive fly fishing as being so much more complex than spin fishing that they’ll pine over trying to select the best fly reel, concerned that they won’t have the perfect one for the job.

If anything, fly fishing is more forgiving in terms of having exactly the right reel. You can get away with a reel that’s a size too big or small most of the time, and once you understand the basics of fly reel design, you’ll quickly see there’s no need to overthink or overcomplicate the process of buying one. All that really matters is your budget. But believe me when I tell you: Aside from perhaps better, stronger, materials used to make one versus the other, the design principles are the same with an $80 5-weight fly reel and an $800 5-weight fly reel. So, if you’re in the market, you can narrow down your choices by answering these two simple questions. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL STORY