With the short days I have spent those long evenings brewing beer, filling in seed orders, taxi-ing kids around the county and dreaming through the tackle catalogues.

I have come across multiplier reels in the sea fishing fraternity. I rarely cone across anyone using them on my local streams. I have no real desire to own one, it is really just a thirst for knowledge (or is it the beer?)

What is the advantage? Is it a distance thing? Or is it a weight issue?
I was under the impression that they were more likely to tangle?

I realise it will set a few heads shaking, but I must confess that my main interest in Piking is just to clear the swim so I can see what else is there.

more likely to tangle in your first few days of using them, but once you get the hang of them, they're great. after a lifetime of using fixed spools, i'm a convert to the abu range, great reels, give plug fishing a whole new feel, no more range really, no lighter, just feel right!
i caught my first pike on a multiplier today and playing was great fun on an abu 5501.

As well as sea fishing I use multipliers for most of my lure and boat fishing for Pike.I wont go into technical reasons as Jeepster has summed it up perfectly "it just feels right"!

Yup. I have an eggbeater reel on my spod rod but otherwise, conventional reels (multipliers that is) do it for me in almost all cases with bait or lure.

Reasons as mentioned above.

I too prefer multipliers, for lure fishing and boat fishing for pike. Normally use fixed spools or centre pins for bank fishing.

But I always use left-hand wind multipliers and to anyone trying them for the first time, I'd recommend doing the same (unless you're left-handed of course).

I have never understood why most US and contintental anglers go for right-hand retrieve when fishing reels on top of the rod (multipliers and baitcasting closed faces). Perhaps you could explain, Newt?

fenboy - I can explain part and guess at part.

These days, we use the r/h wind reels from habit. If you start with one of them then after a couple of years you decide to switch to l/h, it feels really awkward. I tried one for a while and hated the whole feel of it but I'm sure that is because my muscles were so accustomed to casting, switching over, and retrieving. No thought needed.

A youngster starting out with multipliers will either use his Dad's gear so r/h or go to a store that probably doesn't even stock any l/h or if they do, not many.

In the beginning, I can only guess but the reel makers were companies that had started in business making fly reels. They are r/h for the most part so it was natural to do multipliers the same way. Maybe even a matter of having machines tooled for that.

These days I have good reason to stay with r/h because of age or stiffness or whatever. It gives the right hand a nice break to cast and then get rid of the rod. Winding is a different motion and much less stress on the hand and arm. I get numbness in the right wrist if I spend too long with a spinning rod/reel for lure work where my right wrist doesn't get a real break from stress since it has to cast and then retain the rod thru the retrieve.

I use a r/h multiplier when sea fishing.

Here the rod is mainly used to 'pump' the fish in, and any 'playing' is done using the reel.

For freshwater, where the rod is the main instrument used for playing a fish (amongst many features), and the reel is used mostly to wind in line, I use a l/h multiplier.

The funny thing is, that I just can't get on with the opposite reel in either medium. It's as though my brain is hard-wired - r/h for saltwater, l/h for freshwater!!

Tight Lines - leon

Are the multiplier reels used f or sea the same spec as those for fresh water? They appear to be the same. But fixed spool for sea are much meatier than fresh water versions.

in the abu range the 4601, 5501 or 6501 are the ones you would use for freshwater fishing, the bigger the initial number, the bigger (and stronger/meatier) the reel. for sea fishing you probably wouldnt use one smaller than a 6501, all the way up the the biggies they do (9000, 10000?)

I would advise the use of mono on a multiplier as braid can pack down and bury it's self, resulting in missed or aborted casts.