The CARP FISHING GUIDE Saves you Time and Money.
Carp Fishing Reel
When I first started carp fishing in the late 70's the most popular Carp Fishing Reel then was the Mitchell 300 series; it had a very cumbersome bail arm and no skirted spool, I used to own a pair, they were good in their day.
In 1982 I acquired 3 Cardinal 55 reels these reels were the dogs dangles and very sought after.
These Carp Fishing Reels had a skirted spool nice size bail arm with rear clutch control which could be loosened at the rear as a kind of bait runner you could even change the reel handless on the right or left, I even struck a bite one night and my mates had swapped the handle over ha ha ha! They were made by ABU Sweden as a spinning rod this reel played a large part in carp history with the likes of Kevin Maddoixx & Ritchie McDonald using them.
The line lay was second to none so casting distance was much easier. I could quite easily go back to using them I caught a lot of fish using them.
Around 1992 someone broke into my garage and took my prized 55's and most of my other tackle, I had a good insurance payout but I ended up with Shimano Bait Runners 3500's.Cardainals were rare by then and I couldn’t be hanging around I needed to get fishing.
The Shimano bait runner has revolutionized the carp world to this day there are lots of imitations out there but the Shimano is still the best.
The reels I use now and swear by are the Daiwa Emblem Z's these are a big pit style reel which has such a large spool and good line lay helps you get that extra 20 or 30 yards, I also added a bait runner conversion to the spool so they are controlled from the spool and not the back end of the reel like the Shimano bait runner.
I’ve had these emblems for about 6 or 7 years they have really took some abuse and have never let me down, I haven’t even had them serviced yet which is well over due so I will have to send them to Daiwa if I wanted a proper job done, I would never change these reels only for new ones of the same model.