Just scored a nice looking Long Beach 60

[Wolfram M]

Found it on the 'bay. Was patient and waited, 20$ shipped and the chrome looks really good. Nice clean reel.

Hopefully it shows up before I leave-if it doesn't then no big deal, I don't have a rod for it yet anyway. There is always the next trip!

[Flat Top]

A great reel! Had a few of them when I lived in Florida. When I moved back home I gave them and my Senators to a fishing  buddy of mine that could never afford decent reels. I figured the few Delmar 285's (poor mans Long Beach)that I also had would do me just fine up here. I kept one Long Beach 67 (my first, bought new) and still have and use it. You should really enjoy the 60.

Sometimes I buy reels on the bay but I gave up on "bidding" for them....I lost some nice deals that way. You must have a great deal of patience! Good luck with the 60!!!!

[Surfrat]

  You are lucky! A few of my favorite reels use the Penn 5-60 main gear and etc. What's do plan to fish for with this reel? Many of the party boats in my area still have the old penn 60, 66, 285, 49, and 500 for rental. It's not easy to real kill these simple and easy to maintain reels.

[Wolfram M]

My plan is to put together a rod and reel combo for fishing the party boats in around 100 to 150ft of water, as most of the gulf coast boats I've been on have been around this range.

What I'm hoping to pair the 60 with is a 7ft slow action, medium heavy to heavy rod, for dropping live bait. It will probably be spooled up with 50-60lb braid, but it all depends on what I find in the thrift shops this next vacation to the florida coast.

[Flat Top]

I have 7'6" Catch The Fever Catfish Casting Rods (not The Hellcat rod) in Heavy (20-60 lb line, 2-16 oz weight) and X-Heavy (30-80 lb line, 4-20 oz weight). They are S-Glass blank through construction, 9 reinforced stainless steel double wrapped guides, and double locking aluminum reel seats. If you can find one at a thrift shop I highly recommend. New they are 94.00 and 99.00 respectively....so they are not that expensive...and they are tough as nails...would probably last a lifetime! I dont use these rods all the time but when I hit the big rivers here those are the rods I use. For your purposes they would be ideal. I am sold on them for heavy duty fishing. Y-tube has videos of folks abusing these rods and catching huge fish in fresh and salt water, so they will get the job done.

Note: I am not associated with this company in any way, but they are the best I have found for the money....bulletproof! 

[Squidder Bidder]

I still have my first combo - a Penn Long Beach 60 and Long Beach rod, which was under the Christmas Tree when I was six or so.

The Long Beach 60 was the standard for East Coast Party Boats at least in New Jersey/New York for ages. You can still find them on Party Boats, many in very poor repair and missing important parts like a crossbar.

During the shutdowns I was buying Long Beach 60s from fleabay and rebuilding them to keep busy. I later branched out into Squidders and Jigmasters and more. They're great reels (I was going to say "little reels," but today they're not little anymore).

[JasonGotaProblem]

My only commentary is be prepared to crank fast. I lost a handful of fish to the sharks when I was fishing my 100, which has the steel 60 gears. I just didn't get them to the boat fast enough.

[Wolfram M]

Jason, that's always the problem. I'd love to switch up the gearset and go to a longer lever arm on the crank but that's probably not in the cards for this reel, I'll do that with my aluminum bodied reel project I think. I need to study up on the inches of line retrieved per turn before I set up to cut a dozen new helical gear sets...helical gears are a pain to set up and once you set up to cut them, you cut all of them you think you'll ever need.

It's still slowly coming along. I have a brazed bridge plate assembly done, that fits the beachmaster. I have an aluminum frame drawn in the CAD package and sorta kinda programmed, it needs more but right now it's not my time priority.