• You need to be a registered member of Barbel Fishing World to post on these forums. Some of the forums are hidden from non-members. Please refer to the instructions on the ‘Register’ page for details of how to join the new incarnation of BFW...

Bail arms

Kevin Brown

Kevin Brown

Senior Member & Supporter
Just been talking to a staff member in Bobco and he’s telling me all reels will now come with manual bail arms ?
some kind of legislation about premature closing of the bail arms while doing a long cast .
i was playing about with a Daiwa Castizm 25BR and sure enough it had manual closing of the bail arm , although a few Shimano’s didn’t have it .
anyone else heard this ? Or am I behind the times and it’s old news . 🤔
 
I,ve just recently bought a castizm br and a whisker 25qd and both have the manual bail arms which was a bit of a surprise to me I thought the reels had faulty bail arms at first :( contacted Daiwa and they confirmed manual bail arms are fitted for safety reasons in case of crackoffs etc ...must be something Daiwa do nowadays on long casting reels I assume
 
He said it was all reels not just Daiwa , bit of a pain on a spinning reel for example
Maybe the other reel manufacturers will start doing it ?
 
Most carp reels / bit pit reels have manual closing bail arms🎣 design to stop you cracking off on the cast by accidentally closing the bail arm👍
Smaller reels I believe still close on the turn of the handle🎣
 
It’s a genius idea! The bail arm cannot close on you mid cast and we’ve all had that happen to us in the past.
Also if you cast with the AR on and the rotor right round into it’s locked position, it is solid. It can’t twirl around and the bail can’t trip.
What’s not to like???

Auto bail trips are a pain in the arse. They wear out the more you use them and the more they wear the more the bail trips.

Shimano had an idea of using a tapered ring as a brake to slow the rotor down when the bail was open. It worked but it made auto tripping the bail quite difficult so there was very little point in it being there.

Just close it with your hand ….it’s that simple! Your reel will thank you for it in additional life.

The only auto trip system that was any good in my opinion was the old daiwa system using an external trip. That worked well and wouldn’t trip without significant force on the handle so accidentally tripping didn’t happen. Still not really necessary mind because anyone using their reels correctly will close the bails by hand
 
I can see the need casting a 5oz lead over 100 yards , but let’s face it most of us on here trip the bail arm when tightening down after cast , it’s been done that way forever .
Why have a bail arm at all ? Just hook the line behind a line roller and wind in , take it out to cast out , ( very simplistic I know ) Im sure these companies can come up with something along those lines that would work , because all they’ve done is remove something and called it fixed , then they expect to teach old dogs new tricks .

Just sounds like an half ass way of doing things to me , and certainly no need plopping a lead out two rod lengths .
 
A bit difficult with a vintage Mitchell 300, but if I have to I manage to trip the bail by manually releasing the bail arm ”catch” . TBH the Mitchell Bail arm is a really good design imo and works as an auto closing system as well or better than many modern ones .

My Beach fixed spools all have auto bail closure, but I never ever use them, always manually close the bail arm.

David
 
Kevin Brown said:
I can see the need casting a 5oz lead over 100 yards , but let’s face it most of us on here trip the bail arm when tightening down after cast , it’s been done that way forever .
Why have a bail arm at all ? Just hook the line behind a line roller and wind in , take it out to cast out , ( very simplistic I know ) Im sure these companies can come up with something along those lines that would work , because all they’ve done is remove something and called it fixed , then they expect to teach old dogs new tricks .

Just sounds like an half ass way of doing things to me , and certainly no need plopping a lead out two rod lengths .
Click to expand...
I am not in the minority and I position my bails by hand after every cast, short or long, under or over. It’s no easier or quicker or more convenient to do it with or without the reels handle.

Having an auto trip doesn’t warrant the need or existence of the bail arm, you need it to be there despite how it’s tripped to guide line back into the roller and also unknown to some its design plays a large part in how well balanced the rotor is.

I absolutely welcome the manual only trip bail on reels. In my opinion it’s a huge failure point of the reel removed because using them does eventually wreck em.
 
Ben Marr said:
Does anyone actually use the automatic trip?
Click to expand...

Never have done.

Kevin Brown said:
...but let’s face it most of us on here trip the bail arm when tightening down after cast , it’s been done that way forever .
Click to expand...

This is news to me - I thought most people closed it manually (assuming what you mean by 'trip', is by winding).
.
 
Kevin Steele said:
Never have done.



This is news to me - I thought most people closed it manually (assuming what you mean by 'trip', is by winding).
.
Click to expand...
It’s even bigger news to me that folk actually manually trip the bail arm , I’m assuming Shimano Mitchell Intrepid Abu Garcia Penn etc went to great lengths to design a system were the bail arm tripped over automatically on winding in .

it’s probably filtered down from carp anglers who were trying to chuck a lead into the stratosphere and bail arm closed on them half way through?

Hence Daiwa are probably the first to sell a reel that as a manual bail arm ( Daiwa reels are heavily influenced by Korda )

But as they say, every days a school day 👍
 
I can understand why they might remove the auto trip feature on reels that are likely to be used when casting relatively large weights. A prematurely closing bail can have serious consequences. I'm less understanding when a reels is intended for float fishing and lighter legering. However, saying that, despite a background that's fairly well rooted in match style fishing, I manually close bail arms. I've always hated the clunk of an auto closure. Whether it's achieved internally or externally with the buffer on the reel foot stem contacting the bail roller, it's always felt and sounded (mechanically) horrible to me. I don't even spin the handle to disengage a proper baitrunner lever! A bad case of mechanical sympathy, but my reels always last forever.
 
Chris Jones said:
I'm less understanding when a reels is intended for float fishing and lighter legering.
Click to expand...
That’s the thing Chris, not many reels intended for that nowadays.
The majority of fixed spool offerings to us now are “spinning” reels and I can absolutely see the need for a non auto bail on any spinning reel. Especially heavy lures used in conjunction with fine braids.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
That’s the thing Chris, not many reels intended for that nowadays.
The majority of fixed spool offerings to us now are “spinning” reels and I can absolutely see the need for a non auto bail on any spinning reel. Especially heavy lures used in conjunction with fine braids.
Click to expand...

I'm well aware that most lighter reels are simply adopted from spinning reels intended for bigger markets. However, there are still a few out there that are more squarely intended for our coarse fishing than others. The Shimano Aero XR and its less expensive siblings being a case in point. These reels are a direct consequence of UK general coarse anglers abandoning Shimano over the wholesale removal of the anti-reverse switch on their "spinning" reels.

In the same vein, most carp/specialist/baitrunner reels are/were originally intended for various sea fishing applications.
 
Chris Jones said:
I'm well aware that most lighter reels are simply adopted from spinning reels intended for bigger markets. However, there are still a few out there that are more squarely intended for our coarse fishing than others. The Shimano Aero XR and its less expensive siblings being a case in point. These reels are a direct consequence of UK general coarse anglers abandoning Shimano over the wholesale removal of the anti-reverse switch on their "spinning" reels.

In the same vein, most carp/specialist/baitrunner reels are/were originally intended for various sea fishing applications.
Click to expand...

I’d say less than most.
discounting obsolete versions like the B’s and big blues etc there’s only the 3 current versions from shimano that we barbel guys like, that I can think of as salt water reels. OC, D. Thunnus,
DL’s, aeros, XT’s etc we’re course reels

There’s a good number of pit style baitrunners out there that definitely originated for the carp/specialist/course guys.

The XR …… now I do fancy trying one of those at some point especially the 5000.

Yes that was bought out for us course guys but not in full commitment. Look at the size and length of the handle on it and When was the last time you bought a reel with a proper match spool. A dedicated spool that would allow you to fill it from bottom to brim with 100m of 0.16. It’s a spinning reel with AR and a couple of spool reducers imo.

I’m not dissing it btw. I’m definitely keen on trying one out for trotting. I like the weight stats and spool diameter sizes.

It wouldn’t be any less of a reel imo if the auto trip was removed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top