Feathering a Spinning Reel
You know that feeling you get when you realize you've been doing something wrong for the last 60 years? You probably don't because you're probably not old enough. Feel free to substitute 50 years, or 40 years, or 30, or ever since the first time you picked up a spinning rod. I'm talking about feathering a spinning reel.
My whole life, no one ever mentioned it. I'd never seen anyone do it. I'd never read about it - at least not until just a few years ago when learned about, tracked down and read Erne St. Clair's 1961 book entitled The Modern Science of Spin Fishing. I didn't track down the book to learn how to feather a spinning reel, I wanted to learn his wave and snap casts. Instructions on feathering a spinning reel were in the book, though.
By the way, a PDF file of the entire book is available free online. Google can find it for you.
Before going into any detail on what it is and how to do it, I should first answer the most basic question: why bother? There are three reasons: 1) accuracy, specifically getting the casting distance right, 2) achieving a soft rather than splashy entry as the lure hits the water, and 3) preventing loose coils of line from escaping the reel's spool at the end of the cast.
Finesse-fishing.com is written primarily for anglers fishing smaller streams for trout. In that setting, casting accuracy is important. The most productive spot to target often will be a bank eddy, or a relatively small gap between large rocks on the shoreline. Trout often lie in the quiet water just past the seam between the quiet water of the eddy and the main current of the stream. They don't have to expend much energy in the quiet water, and the current brings food almost right to them. The ideal cast placement is deep into the eddy, close to the bank. If your cast is a foot too short, it might land right on top of the fish, which will scare it. If it is a foot too far it could get snagged on sticks or brush on shore.
Distance accuracy can be incredibly important on lakes as well. A friend and I go to Maine for a week's vacation every year. There is a little pond we have fished many times that is in a boggy area. It has undercut banks and bushes right up to the shoreline. The bass hold in the undercuts. Fishing from a canoe, if our casts are a couple feet too short we never get hits. If our casts are a foot or two too long we get snagged in the bushes. For years (long before Finesse-Fishing.com), we fished floating Rapalas with two sets of trebles. Once they're in a bush, they do not come back out!
Feathering the reel can gradually slow the lure's flight, ideally stopping its forward momentum just before it hits the water, allowing it to enter the water with minimal disturbance. Especially in the relatively small bank eddies, you really don't want the lure to splash down like someone throwing rocks into the stream. The fish will notice your lure soon enough, you don't want to scare it, though.
Loose coils of line coming off the reel at the end of your cast can be a problem when fishing extremely small lures that provide minimal resistance to being pulled through the water (or when fishing ester line, which absolutely does not want to stay on the spool). Feathering the reel and stopping the lure's fight just as or before it hits the water will prevent any additional line from coming off the spool.
Feathering the reel can make your spinning rod just as accurate as a baitcaster. It will take practice, but it is worth it.
What Erne St. Clair described was extending your index finger, down and in front of the reel so that the line flowing off the reel would brush against your finger.
Erne St. Clair feathering a spinning reel.By changing the position of your finger you could increase the friction, slowing the lure's flight, or catch the line and stop it entirely. Well, I tried it. I really did, but for me the difference between "no effect" and "immediate stop with rebound" was so small that I basically gave up and stopped making risky casts where a foot too far meant a lure lost to a log or a tree branch.
I think there is a better way. As with the Flip Cast, I didn't really "get it" until I saw a YouTube video by a Japanese stream fisherman, who described his method and a couple minor variations in great detail. Unfortunately, as with the Flip Cast video, it is in Japanese.
I will give a link to the video in a bit, but first, the basic difference between what the guy in the video does and what Erne St. Clair did is that instead of sticking your index finger out in front of the reel, the guy in the video places the tip of his finger lightly against the rim of the spool. If your touch is very light, you can feel the line play out. You can gently increase your finger pressure on the spool rim to slow the lure's flight, and with a little more pressure you can stop it. If pressure is applied very gradually, the lure will slow and finally fall but will not bounce back.
There is one variation that he mentions but recommends against, but which for me is preferred over his basic method. The difference is how you release the line when making a cast. His preferred method is to release the same way everyone is taught - after reeling in the line, pick the line up in the first joint of your index finger, open the bail, and when you make the cast let the line go by straightening your index finger. From there you can lightly place your finger on the spool rim to feather the cast.
Index finger lightly touching the spool rim.For me, finding the spool rim with my finger immediately is not assured. (Obviously, I just need more practice.) If you miss, you either stop the cast abruptly or you have no feathering at all (which is pretty much what I experienced with the Erne St. Clair method). In my opinion, it is much easier to place your finger on the rim before opening the bail, and as you make your cast just lift your finger ever so slightly, which allows the line to play out. Your finger is always in the perfect position to apply a little more pressure to slow and then stop the cast.
The gradual slowing and stopping is important. It allows the lure to enter the water quietly. It also keeps slack out of the line so when you close the bail you have a tight line and can set the hook immediately on the occasions when a fish hits your lure as soon as the lure hits the water. Plus, with no slack in the line as you close the bail and start reeling, you pretty much eliminate loose coils of line getting onto your spool. Finally, it can greatly reduce the number of times that the front hook on minnow lure catches the line.
OK, enough preamble. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_OSh9XygCk&t=4s (link opens in a new window). In YouTube, click the gear icon. Then click on Subtitles/CC. Then click on Japanese (auto-generated). On the next box, click on Japanese (auto-generated) again. Then click on Auto-translate. Then click on your preferred language. I find it helpful to click on the gear icon again and change Playback speed to .75 because at full speed the captioning does not always stay on the screen long enough to finish reading it.
You may prefer his standard approach or another one of his variations. Whichever you choose, this is by far the best and most clear explanation of feathering a spinning reel that I have found - even if you can't understand a word of Japanese. (Be sure to enable the auto-translated closed captions, though!)
There are lots of Japanese YouTube videos on how to feather a spinning reel. In YouTube, search for フェザリング (cut and paste into the search bar). There are very few in English, and none that are specifically applicable to fishing with light lures in small stream. I guess it isn't surprising. In Japan, large percentage of spin fishing is done in narrow mountain streams. In the US, most spin fishing is done in wide open lakes. Even among the non-Japanese YouTube videos about spin fishing for trout in "small streams," very nearly all of them show anglers casting right up the middle of the stream or into a deep pool.
Watch the Japanese videos. You will notice that even videos on lure fishing in mountain streams that are not about feathering the reel will still show anglers feathering the reel. It is basic to stream fishing in Japan - so basic that a video I saw that explained how to do backhand and forehand casts showed the guy feathering the reel on each cast. He didn't even mention feathering. Apparently he thought it was so basic he didn't have to.
Learn to feather the reel. Cast to the spots on a stream that no one else casts to because they don't want to risk losing their treble-hooked lure -- near logs, between rocks, under branches, deep into bank eddies. Basically, fish to fish that don't see lures because no one fishes for them.
Header photo: Tenryu Rayz RZ4102B-UL, Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS-HG ('17)
Warning:
The hooks are sharp.
The coffee's hot.
The fish are slippery when wet.
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