Heavy duty reel seats on a spinner

[JasonGotaProblem]

(In your opinion) At what point does one need to switch from, for example: a regular fuji DPS style reel seat, to a heavy duty reel seat, or one with metal hoods? Have you ever seen a standard reel seat fail under load? If so how?

[thorhammer]

The hoods crack, but it takes a lot of force. There are fuji DPS seats on my Trevala rods and I've winched on them about as hard as I dare with 80 lb braid. If I were to build a spinner to throw poppers at larger tuna I might switch to an ALPS all-aluminum seat. There are seats with graphite barrels and heavy aluminum rings which are quite sturdy and save a bit of weight if it's a rod you'll be handling all day. I stay away from the graphite hoods- they call them HD; they're not. I have one on a Shimano rod right now (stock) that I have to tear down and replace becasue it split. Stainless hoods on lighter stuff and billet aluminum on trolling rods is the way I roll. Just my 0.02, everyone will have an opinion. DPSD 22 or 24 is quite strong and is unlikely to fail in a casting situation. It's in trolling with drags set heavy where  a pelagic may go the other way in a hurry that puts so much stress on it. There's little give in a rod holder of a moving boat vs. in your hands.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Makes sense. I'm looking to try to build a rod for reef fish/grouper, and was trying to figure out if the extra strength is needed. I have never fished offshore (and frankly haven't fished from a boat much in general in the past 15 years) so I completely lack any experience in this area, and gotta ask dumb questions.

[thorhammer]

That's a completely valid question. I've caught YFT, grouper and AJ's with no issues on the trevala's. Goliath Grouper is another story altogether tho.

[jurelometer]

IMHO, consumers associate aluminum reel seats with quality, and since good looking aluminum reel seats are pretty cheap wholesale, there is often more profit in sticking them on rods that are worse off for the choice.

As long as the line is not far from  the blank at the point where it joins the reel, the load on the reel seat is primarily along the length of the rod.  You are basically pulling the reel into the front hood.  The most important thing if you are worried about load is to install the reel seat so that the threaded end is on the butt side, so that the most rigid side is taking the load.  The next most important thing is that you get a good fit between the hood and the foot, because the foot is going to try to shift forward under load, which has the same effect as backing off the threaded hood.  The reel gets loose and starts shifting around when you try to wind under load.

IN my experience, there are more problems with aluminum reel seat hoods not fitting well, the reel shifts forward and starts getting loose during a fight. "Graphite" (fiber reinforced nylon) flexes a bit and conforms well.  Plus, graphite hoods won't chew up the reel foot. And of course corrosion on the seat and reel is much less of a problem with graphite.  Aluminum wins over graphite when it comes to resisting UV degradation over the long run.  If you store  rods outdoors and  exposed to the sun, this can make a difference.

Once the reel gets taller (like a big conventional or any spinning reel) there is a greater possibility of levering the reel out of the seat.  This is where the greater elasticity and lower breaking strength works against graphite reel seats.   But having said that, a heavy duty graphite seat will take you pretty far.  Pulling against 30lbs drag with a tall spinner or conventional  would make me want to err on the side of safety, because if that reel exits the seat under high load, things could get ugly real fast.

 If you go graphite,  and the seat does not have a locking ring, Fuji provides  these thin locking rings separately.  Not needed for lighter setups, but I like them, and use them more and more.

When it comes to tightening down the reel on the seat, with aluminum seats you are sort of stuck cranking down pretty hard, as the fit of the foot to the inside of the hood is rarely optimal, and the materials will not be flexing much.  For graphite seats, you just need to tighten enough to get a good grip.  The extra tightening just puts more stress on the hood.

If you go with aluminum, you have to pay attention to the fit of the hoods with any of the reels that you might use.  Pay attention to the outside diameter, and stay away from oddball gimmick designs (I am looking at you Alps Triangle )

The heavy duty graphite Fujis have much stronger hoods than the standard models, but they might not come in a small enough diameter for your purposes.  The hoods are pretty large too, don't know if it would make issues with a gripping  a spinning rod in your hand.  It probably would not look as cool, so there is that.

FWIIW, If you are going to pull under high load from a boat, and presumably will not be casting much with light weight, it doesn't make a lot of sense using a spinner, unless that is part of the added challenge.

-J

[boon]

My PE8 spin jig rod, set up to fish 100lb braid at high drag, uses a Fuji DPS.

[oldmanjoe]

             I agree the fastest way to wreck a hood is a ill fitting reel foot .      If you have a single seat nut that refuses to stay put , a few wraps of tape will
        hold it  .

         I have no problems with spinning reel seats leaving a rod , i always have these vice grips holding it on  !!!!!!!




               

[JasonGotaProblem]

Thank you Dave, for giving me the background info I need to make informed decisions. My preference for spinners is... Well it's a preference.
Joe, I used to do competitive judo. My grip strength likely needs no further introduction. But I don't wanna spend the energy on building a rod to have the thing at the bottom of the stack of work be the thing to break.

So it sounds like a reasonable answer might be to just go with aluminum hoods?
Anyone have experience with these?
https://mudhole.com/products/channel-lock-reel-seats-with-aluminum-hoods?variant=34374197117061
I don't wanna spend an arm and a leg on a rod I likely won't use super often, but I also don't wanna put the effort into building a rod around a questionable seat. Surely there's a happy medium?

[philaroman]

isn't DPS already "happy medium"?  ...i.e., cushioned steel:
thin steel outside keeps the graphite from cracking due to stress or side impact
graphite inside provides better fit, keeps weight down & doesn't scratch alloy feet
also, rigid graphite keeps thin steel from deforming too easily

[boon]

What's the planned reel and how much drag to get the job done?

[Jeri]

(In your opinion) At what point does one need to switch from, for example: a regular fuji DPS style reel seat, to a heavy duty reel seat, or one with metal hoods? Have you ever seen a standard reel seat fail under load? If so how?

In your initial question there lies an anomaly, "Fuji DPS style", as there are huge differences in the quality of materials used in Fuji components and all the many mimic products. Have often and repeatedly seen imitations fail, while it is truly rare to see a genuine article fail.

We build heavy surf rods specifically for spinning type reels, aimed at sharks over 200kgs (440lbs), and never yet had a genuine Fuji DPS fail, the only concession we make is by adding the Fuji Lock nut arrangement to remove the problem of reel nuts coming a little lose, which is most often the root cause of failures in non-genuine articles. Even inthe most extreme cases over the years of building, we have occasionally used the Fuji DPS-H, for heavier duty boat rods.

[JasonGotaProblem]

What's the planned reel and how much drag to get the job done?

I'm torn between using it for my penn 750SS in which case it won't see more than 20# (and I already know a fuji DPS seat is fine with 20#) or being used for my LT100 even though that already has a rod, in which case it could see 50# in theory but I'm not sure I'll be the one to take it there. I'm sure that clears it up.

isn't DPS already "happy medium"?  ...i.e., cushioned steel:
thin steel outside...

Is that steel? I always just assumed it was painted graphite. Well I'm an idiot. We knew that.

Jeri, you guys are nuts down there. Wading out to cast for 400# sharks. In waters with 400# sharks. But I guess theres some comfort to be had knowing you're throwing 200yds out to find them.

[Brewcrafter]

I only have ever had one reel seat fail, and it was on a quality rod and it failed from the tremendous amount of leverage that threading down (over tightening) to tighten the reel caused one of the clamps to deform and crack.  I would have to throw out there that mechanically the pressure put on a reel seat via the screw plus the "wedge" action of the reel foot into the seat itself is probably a magnitude above what the seat would ever experience by the pull of a fish even with the leverage of the reel/reel stand?? - john

[Jeri]

Jeri, you guys are nuts down there. Wading out to cast for 400# sharks. In waters with 400# sharks. But I guess theres some comfort to be had knowing you're throwing 200yds out to find them.

The thing is that occasionally one is hooked that doesn't wish an inspection of the beach, which is when we start to 'straight stick', the shark, by pointing the tip towards the shark, winding up the drag to maximum, and start walking back up the beach. Loads on the reel seat then are massive - up to 40-50lbs straight on the reel feet. If it doesn't break under those kinds of loads, then unlikely to when the rod is used in a conventional manner - so for us Fuji DPS win hands down.

[thorhammer]

I'm currently building a pair of heavy boat spinners for my buddy / fishing partner, to use on AJ's and grouper and whatever else. 50-80 lb blanks with a 950SSV and 850SSV with 100 and 80 braid respectively. I only use DPSD seats (the lined hood is worth it) unless building a trolling rod for 50lb and up. I expect no issues. I have DPSM's on factory rods with 6/0's, winching grouper and AJ- no issues. Not that things can't fail, they certainly do, but having bottom fished offshore with them for 25 years or better, jigging, bait, and bailing dolphin / cobia / wahoo, I just haven't seen a failure and have broken 80 lb braid leaning on it, without any sweat off the reel seat. I have large hands and still prefer the profile the profile of the DPSD with a spinner; I found the profile of the thick grapite hoods bulky to hand. My 0.02. If you can add the locking ring, it is def a good idea. As Dave points out, you'd like the seat uplocking for fighting, but bouncing around on a boat ride can actually work like a hammer drill and back the nut off. I check all rigs for loose screws and nuts before and after a trip, and still we see backoff on occoasion. We have a longer bouncier ride than you, though- 65 miles out. Had a 9500SS come off the rod in the t-top once plowing through ten footers. Fortunately the 80lb braid just swung it at me instead of losing the reel.