Good fishing reels for winter?

[Anzomcik]

Today i went out, to try my luck. About every twnth cast i needed to stop and blow the ice build up from my reel. So i am wondering if anyone has a favorite cold weather reel? It is a major pain to have to clear the ice from the rod guides, but if you need to clear the reel also it makes for tough time to keep the line wet.

[lowbidder]

I can tell you that the low profile Abu Garcia's are NOT ice friendly. My record did fairly well today, only had to clean it out a few times.

[Anzomcik]

I hear you on that, I have 5 curado 300s that i make work in the winter. They are great reels for me when above freezing.

[Red Childress]

After a full day of casting yesterday in temps below 30, I noticed why my reel was having more trouble than past years.

I have been filling my reels as full as I can get them to order to decrease slack line problems associated with pulling glide baits/bulldawgs 'with' the river current. That worked fine (during the other 3 seasons) until the ice started to form and inhibited the ability of going into free spool during casts. I had to pull a few layers of line off yesterday in order to free up enough space to chisel out the ice layer between my spool and the reel frame.

[toothyfishman]

Wednesday was too cold to cast but we were.
The line will get fatter with the ice coating on the line, eventually your spool becomes "too full" and there isn't much you can do then.
The lesser clearance from the line to the reel makes this worse and the ice happens faster.
I brought the rods in the house to thaw out, it's amazing how loose the wraps of line are now.
Do not try to cast this out if you do this.....backlash city!
Best to pull it out and re-wind that one cast lenght while it's in the house.

[ToddM]

I do alot of below freezing fishing. Once it gets say below 25 it gets pretty tough. The best reel by far are the garcia reels. You need a wire line guide which seems peel off less water to form ice on the guide and on the sides of the reel. You will still have to pick some ice and be wary of the ice on the sides of the spool where the line guide hits the end as this will cause the levelwind to break. Line is also very important. Just use power pro. it aborbs the least amount of water. Some superlines absorb more water and when they freeze, they expand and if you have a full spool, the line will hit your reel crossmembers and that tears up the line.

I like the garcia inshore reel. Double anti reverse, it has been a great cold weather reel. Fisherman's Factory Outlet has recons for 1/2 price. That is what I have. I am sure a C3 would work too as my ultracasts have worked ok too.

Always bring extra reels. Before I started using the garcias exclusively in below freezing temps I would go through alot of reels. 7 in one day. Another thing too is if the button freezes or it stops working well, stick it on your coat pocket and put on a spare, always keep one thawed. So far I have not had to swap out the inshore reel.