[Leeder]

I have been lucky enough to do a lot more charters out of Plymouth this year and I am now thinking about investing in a second heavier set up for congering.

Having done a bit of reading on this forum, it seems that the majority of people like using 50lb braid when anchoring for congers, so I was wondering if a Shimano Charter Special TRQ 2000 would be a suitable reel to use when at anchor on the wrecks out of Plymouth, as it would hold enough 50lb braid.

I already own a TRQ 1000 Charter Special (loaded with 30lb braid) that I use when drifting for pollack/cod and love it as it has all the feature I wanted (level wind, lever drag, centrifugal brakes for a bit of uptiding). However having not done a lot of fishing for the bigger congers, I wasn't sure if these reels would be strong enough?

Many thanks for any advice you can give me.

 

[excel]

Don't be shy, ask one of the skippers you've used whether they prefer braid or mono.
Mono would be my preference for large conger fishing. Much more resistant to abrasion and no need to introduce weaknesses in the form of leaders, but it is certainly more difficult to fish with.

 

[Captain Spike]

The reel will easily handle pretty much any conger but it will probably struggle cranking up the heavy weights that are often required to hold bottom.

 

[robbym]

I'm sure you could catch Conger on this reel, however, it could be quite hard work if you hook a big one!.

Couple of thoughts;

I can see the benefits of a light reel with level wind when you are drifting wrecks and winding lures up and down. Seems less important to me when you are fishing a static bait on the bottom?.

I think these reels have a 5.2:1 gear ratio - this is great for lure fishing as each turn of the handle moves the lure a long way through the water collumn. For big fish a low gear ratio would be better as you want torque rather than speed to put pressure on the fish. Ideal for really big fish is a 2 speed reel (high gear for smaller fish or retrieving rig to the surface, low gear extra torque for big fish) but that puts you in a very different price bracket.

As you are already happy with the charter special you might want to look at the Shimano TLD range - effectively next size up from charter special but with no level wind. The are larger and have a lower gear ratio - about 3.5:1 I think. The TLD 20 and 25 seem popular for congering, if you want to keep relatively light you should be able to get away with a TLD 15. You should be able to pick up a good second hand one of these for less that a charter special, or a new one for only a little more. The 2 speed version would be a TLD 30 but these would be a lot more expensive.

There are lots of reels from other manufacturers in this size range that would do the job, If I had £100-150 burning a whole in my pocket looking for a conger reel I would look at the Avet range - currently on offer at Rokmax.



Good luck.

Rob

Whilst I can see the benefits of a level wind when

 

[Alfresco30]

I used to fish a fair bit on the wrecks out of plymouth and the thing we always noticed was the water depth.

It was before braid and using 50lb mono you needed good size weights to get down and decent size reels 6/0 to handle the effort of even checking the baits.

with braid you can reduce the lead and therfore reduce the size of the reels. but I would advise not going too small

out from Poole we tend to not get that many monster eels, 60/70 is a good fish here. We use TLD15's most of the time with 30lb braid, but we do carry 20's and 25's loaded with 50lb braid for the day we get it right and find the big boys.

Charlie