The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Does or would the drum make any difference? Most people tend to favour the wide drum for margine fishing for carp but after handling mine today and finally getting around to spooling some new line onto it, I can't see why it would make much difference.

I would welcome other people's opinions.

I cant see why it would make any difference at all. A winch is a winch.

They say the wider drum reels have less chance of the line bedding in. I have a wide drum Speedia and have never experienced the line bedding in even when carp fishing but I have never used a narrow drum centre pin, all of my pins are wide drums so I cannot say if this is true.

Flickem wrote:I cant see why it would make any difference at all. A winch is a winch.

Not sure that statement is true Sir, I have always associated narrow/shallow arboured reels with float work on rivers, trotting and the like where as wide/deep arboured reels with heavier work, carp,barbel etc.

I've only ever used wide drum pins with about 40 – 50 yards of line on them. I suspect it's like a lot of things – theoretically one may be better than the other but in practise other elements become more critical. For example, you might have a narrow drum pin you enjoy using and can cast well with, so your ability to place a bait effectively might have more bearing on the success of your day than how wide the reel is. You could then argue that the drum width makes no difference…

Paul D wrote:

Flickem wrote:I cant see why it would make any difference at all. A winch is a winch.

Not sure that statement is true Sir, I have always associated narrow/shallow arboured reels with float work on rivers, trotting and the like where as wide/deep arboured reels with heavier work, carp,barbel etc.

That maybe so, but when push comes to shove, they are interchangeable. I use a wide drum Speedia for barbel fishing, but if i had to, id use my narrow drum Flickem as long as the line was right.

I used to use a wide drum Lythe for trotting no problems.

Thanks Gents.

I'm going to be using my speedia for margin work and I'm keeping my match aerial for trotting the river.

I have an Allcocks Isis and a Sapper roach to restore and it would be lovely to use both of those along with an Allcocks reel (I wish I had two) but shouldn't be greedy and anyway, one doesn't trot with more than one rod at a time.

The speedia, I've paired up with the Marco Test that I'm doing up.