Favorite copper reel for tournament fishing

[shawn393]

I am curious to hear what's everyone's favorite copper reel for tournament fishing.  I have owned pretty much all the makes/ model reels and in my opinion there is no perfect copper reel out of the box.  Everything is going to high speed gears now and I like them for fun fishing but not for tournament fishing. I like the Penn fathom reels  but they are too big for a 300 to 350' copper and you have to put a ton of backing on them to get it full. I am almost thinking about going back to some convectors and sending them out to get upgraded. Then keeping my high speed stuff as backups . What are you all using. It's winter. I am bored

 

 

[shawn393]

I should add that this thought started today when I went to order a new reel to replace a worn out 300' copper setup and couldn't decide what to buy

[jmyers345]

What size men reels was you using by chance I have some pen squall 30s I was going to set up for copper


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[shawn393]

2 minutes ago, jmyers345 said:

What size men reels was you using by chance I have some pen squall 30s I was going to set up for copper


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I have a couple squalls in the 50 size. They are huge. I have never owned a 30 size. It looks like it would be tight to get a 300 copper on one with enough backing.  I wish they made a 40 size

[jerryriggin]

800 tekota.

[Gill-T]

I have a 225’ and 250’ weighted steel on saltist 50’s. If I want to go deeper I add a torpedo diver to the leader on an OR-16 release. I refuse to real In anything longer. 

[Yankee Troller]

For a 300 copper I'd suggest a Daiwa Saltist 50. You can get 150yds of 50lb power pro on there for a backer. Trust me it's enough. We've never been spooled and we've run this set-up for many years. From 350-500 I'd suggest a Shimano Tekota 800. Honestly, if you're looking for a really good reel those are the choices I'd stick with. You can save a little coin too and forgo the line counter. It's not needed for copper reels.

 

Saltist

 

Tekota

Edited January 5, 2021 by Yankee Troller

[FishingFool34]

On 1/3/2021 at 9:27 PM, Gill-T said:

I have a 225’ and 250’ weighted steel on saltist 50’s. If I want to go deeper I add a torpedo diver to the leader on an OR-16 release. I refuse to real In anything longer. 

Same here, 300' WS is the max I run (On a Convector 55LS). I C&R majority of the time and anything longer than 300' seems to result in completely exhausted/dead fish.