Baitcasters and their retrieve ratios

Retrieve ratios are a common term used for baitcasting reels. However it can often be hard and confusing to find out what this means and why its important.

When you see a retrieve ratio mentioned, the number you are looking at refers to the gears on the reel – you will often see something like a 2:1, 6:1, 7:3 ratio quoted. The number on the left is referring to the number of times the spool wraps around the line and And the second number is per revolution. A revolution is simply one full turn of the handle.

In the examples previously quoted, a 6:1 ratio would mean that the spool wraps around 6 times for one full turn of the handle. This indicates it is a fast reel. To give an example of why, this would suggest that you are able to reel in a fish a lot quicker than some other reels – turn the handle once, and you have already retrieved 6 spools worth of line.

The higher the number on the left compared to the right is usually indicative of a higher quality reel and also means the angler exerts a lot less effort since they simply need to turn the handle less to bring the line back in fully, whether there is a fish attached to the end or not. This is not always the case however as there are a lot of other factors involved in a reels quality outside of the gear ratio, such as drag, levelwinds, smoothness and so on.

A faster moving spool can also be a lot harder to control for beginners. If you are new to using baitcasting reels then it might be an idea to use one with a low ratio to start of with, so you can get the hang of it first. If you are not able to control the reel correctly, you are likely to end up with birds nests and while you are facing downtime because of this, it eats into your game time quite considerably.