Unexpected gift of conventional rod and reel

[Ornery Bob]

My brother in law, who is 75 years old, and nowadays only fishes 3/4 day charter boats with his buddies, culled part of his gear collection he no longer uses and gave me a very nice hand-me-down gift.

It's a Shimano Calcutta 400S reel and what I believe is a custom made rod. It's an amber colored blank, so I assume it's fiberglass and the only markings on the rod are "CA1620C 6ft" and "Line Test 8-20." All in excellent condition.

He also included what looks like most of a 1000ft reel of Izorline 12lb CoPolymer line.

I'm an ultralight spinning gear kinda guy until now, but I'll be giving this setup a try on my float tube in the harbors. It will be nice to have a beefier rod when fishing around the rocks for calicos. They do like to run into the rocks when hooked.

Only time will tell how well I can adapt to conventional style after all these years, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Using it for my drop-shot sleeper rod is a natural, but I'm wondering if I decide to cast with it if there is a particular style of fishing the conventional does better than the spinner. So far, I'm mostly tossing swimbaits and doing a drop and jerk retrieve, with the occasional change to a Lucky Craft jerk bait.

Spinning reels are not without their faults and I've definitely spent time on the water fixing line/reel issues, so I'm not worried about backlash in general, these things happen, I'm just hoping to keep it reasonable and not a fun killer.

[murrieta angler]

very cool of your brother in law.
you can use soft baits, hard baits, etc....
you will just need to practice using the conventional.
if it hasn't been serviced in a while,it wouldn't hurt to do so, and maybe upgrade the drags.
you will like it and it might become your go to reel.
Happy Holidays.
Robert
<><

[NFCD I]

You'll love it, once you get use to it. In the mean time, go on You Tube for a great way to get back lashes out. "Bait caster How To: Trick For Clearing Backlashes". I use this trick more often than I would like to admit.