Copper

[Yankee Troller]

OK guys, who's running it and whats your set-up?

Im buying a Penn 345GTI and Im not sure what rod its going on yet. I want to get at least 500' on it though. Some PA friends put colored shrink tubing on the copper every 100' so they know how far out it is.

[Erbyjoe]

Yankee what is the gear ratio of that reel?

[Yankee Troller]

-4 to 1

3.25 to 1 - it sux and its heavy, but it catches fish!

[danjr]

Yankee I as well have the penn 345GTI. It's a huge freeking reel with a slow retreive ratio but it's built like a tank. I ran 400ft of the 45lb last year and did okay. One thing I found is that I prefer running it on a big board as opposed to the inlines. To much drag when you fight that board in and we lost fish. I had a tangle at the end of the year with it (PITA when you get tangled, expensive too) and have some more left. So I plan to put mono in between each 100ft section so I can adjust depth that way. Hope to get 500ft on the reel. I have 300yrds of 30lb fireline for backing. Shrink tubing is a great Idea but I am paraniod about putting the copper directly into the clip off the board line so I planned to use mono. Do you know if copper is okay to clip in an offshore planer clip? Thanks!

Oh ya I use a short Diawa heartland rod thats used for leadcore. Works okay but I would like a little more backbone to it.

BTW I'm not sure you remember me but we met and had a few pops with you and your dad up in wilson during the derby. We were fishing with Candy on a charter that day. It was me, my father, shorthanded and ssafran (steve) We fish with Andy every year. Hope to see you up there again in the spring!!

[Tim Bromund]

I set up 200' and 400' copper setups last year. I put the 200' on an Okuma Catalina 45 LC and that worked out fine. 300 yds of 50 lb power pro backing behind the copper.

I put the 400' on an Okuma Titus T20L Lever Drag and though I didn't have a chance to run the 400 much, that seemed to work out good as well, I believe I have almost 400 yds of 50 lb power pro behind the copper on that reel.

With all the negative you sometimes hear about Okuma I was a little leery about buying them, but so far so good on both reels.

East Coast Tackle has the best price in the Titus reels

http://www.eastcoasttackle.com/index.ht ... 71&B=Okuma

Tim

[Yankee Troller]

Danjr - I remember ya! We party with the Candy boys quite often up there. If your up there this spring then you will see me up there.

Thanks guys for the feedback. The shrink tubing isnt to hook into an inline board. I only use big boards and dont like the in lines too much. The shrink tubing is used to tell how much is out. red would be 100', blue 200', and so on.

Im realleary about Okumas. I have 4 and dont like them so I think Im going with the Penn.

[Billy V]

Has anybody looked at the Daiwa Sealine 450H? It's not a level-wind, but it does have a slightly better gear-ratio than the Penn. I'm looking at getting a copper rig myself next year and have wondered if I need a level-wind or not.

[Erbyjoe]

Billy I would think that a level wind would be the way to go with copper I have jigged for cod with reels with no level wind and there a pain in the *** and I was fishing 300 feet down with 60 lb test so I can just imagine the night mare with 3 to 400 feet of copper out.Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't even look at a non level wind.Plus you will have people on your boat that don't have a clue.Just My 2 cents

[waterlogged]

I'm not saying that the Okuma isn't a good reel. My point was just that Daiwa tends to dominate the market here, on Lake Ontario hence the fact that Okumas aren't used as much. Okumas tend to dominate the market on Michigan. I'm not trying to plug Daiwa, just stating what I've seen around here.

Merry Christmas guys - just bustin chops.

( If you read the Stinger post )

Clarke