Line counter reel recommendations??

Hey all!

I’m super frustrated with my Abu Garcia Ambassadeur Line Counter Baitcast Reels (6500). I only have had them for less than a year and 1 out of the four will not zero out even after some wd40 or oil. All four reels are totally inaccurate with telling the depth. I was in 23 fow and when the sinker hit the bottom of the lake they all said “047”!?!? I caught lots of fish on them in spring but recently I had difficulty catching fish on shad that should have been easily caught but then discovered the reason as i discovered the depth is totally inaccurate. 7 real feet in my driveway equals “011” and it gets increasingly more inaccurate the more line you pull out. There is no gear damaged as I took the reel apart to investigate.

Anybody have any experience with these reels? Am I missing something? They are spoiled with 30 pound braid. This is the string I’ve had on it since I got them and was catching lots of fish on them in spring so makes me think the line counters are only recently off....but why now!?

Any recommendations on reels with line counters that are bullet proof and best on the market?

Thanks!
Clay

Just strip the line by hand @ two foot intervals. This is a very accurate method & it eliminates the frustration you are experiencing.
I am no expert, but I always thought the line counter reels were for trolling.

This^^^^^^^

Also, Power Pro makes the Depth Hunter line, it is marked every 5’ and changes color every 25’, if you just have to have a visual.

On a side note, how does the counter count? Does it measure off the number of spool rotations or does the line actually rotate a wheel? I have never had interest in owning one, but this peaked my curiosity. If it counts spool rotations it will never be very accurate due to the spool diameter changing as line spools out.

If they count reel revolutions then the reel will probably be fairly accurate only if the reel is completely full of line and the counter zeroed there. If the reel were filled with 20 pound mono, I would expect the first 100 feet off the reel to be accurate but I've never owned a line counter reel, just a million Abu Garcia products.

Yep it counts it by revolutions which means it should be incredibly accurate no matter what line you put on it. The problem is, it just is inaccurate on these reels for whatever reason or something is just off. Yes you can count it by stripping the line to the first line guide which is about 2 feet and that is how I got started. But when you are trying to put out four rods quickly or taking guests/clients, there is a better, quicker, and more professional way of doing it which is what I'm shooting for. I want to become a part-time guide soon and don't want clients having to strip line by hand and count to 35 feet over and over again for a four-hour trip when I'm charging good money. I want to make it fast, easy, and "client proof". Even if I decide not to guide at all in the future, I want a guide quality rig and stuff because fishing is what I love.

I've found some really nice Shimano Tekota line counter reels which look like solid reels like the abu garcia reels....I just wonder if they have had less troubles with their line counters working. The reel itself on my abu garcia is very good quality from what I can tell, but the line counter is garbage im afraid. I want another high end reel that has a high-end line counter too..... I saw a post a while back of Micheal Littlejohn switching over to Shimano because the Abu's just were not holding up to the abuse of heavy fishing and clients....

For what it's worth, the only line counter reels I have are for salmon fishing in Alaska. Even on those, I don't expect them to be accurate - if the water is 100 feet deep, the line counter might say 130. But, the person using the reel can quickly put their bait back down to whatever depth the last hit was.

Counter reels are all going to be accurate to 100’. All brands will have faulty counters with time. You can pull them and clean them to get a little more life, but easier to keep stock of them. This opinion is coming from running a charter boat in Alaska for 15yrs
Daiwa sealines
Takotas
And 6500s

Another option is counting level wind passes. I.e Normally, one pass is 10ft on 5500s

I have had Abu and Shimano line counters. I use Shimano now and the quality is much better.

Shimano 300 Tekota or the larger line capacity Telota 500 have served me well. Keep the spool full and you will get accurate readings . If you only have a partially filled spool none of them will be very accurate.

Use a 7 foot rod and reach to the tip. Pull down to the butt for 7 feet and repeat for whatever depth you want. I have 8 ea ABU line counters and several don't work well. I know your frustration.

I think I may get a Shimano Line Counter reel. Thank you Steve Barnes for confirming my suspicions that they may be better than the Abu's as I have heard that from others. What size do I need for vertical fishing for hybrids with shad or drifting for blues? My lake isn't over 40 feet deep. I just want plenty of line so if I hook a monster hybrid or go drifting for catfish I may plenty of line.

Thanks everybody!

I use Tekota 300 for bait fishing spooled with 20lb Big Game. Tekota 500 for trolling spooled with 65lb Power Pro.

I figured the 300 would be plenty. Thanks Steve! I’m going to play around with my abu a little longer and maybe take them apart to see if I missed anything but my conclusion is the gear ratio is totally wrong either in the counter or in the reel.

Reel to first eye is 2ft. Keep it simple.

You would be amazing at how difficult that can be for some of my customers.

Exactly! I need a client proof system!

Put a small piece of brightly colored tape around the rod at the 2 foot mark. Tell them to pull from reel to tape for each 2 feet.

In Texas lakes, you'll rarely be more than 40 feet deep.

You don't understand how bad non fishermen are.

It seems coincidental that all 4 reels have failed at one time. I can understand that one has a broken line counter. The info you have provided leads me to think that the ratios are off. You may have lost some line over the past year and without a full spool the gear ratios will be off. It soundslike you only have half spools of line and that will change the ratio. Think about it a full spool will only have to turn once to play out the same amount of line as a 1/2 full. Spool different ratio.
If you find that all the reels are faulty, just use the reels for vertical presentations and forget the counters and follow the good suggestions from the other contributors. If you are using these for trolling and want to let a 100 feet or more out is harder to feed it out a few feet at a,time. If that is the case go buy new takota 300 or 500s. KEEP the spools full or you may not like them either. Good luck

I ordered a tekota 300 to try out. I think I upgraded from 20 pound braid to 30 pound a few months ago and maybe I need to redo it and put more string on them but they are more than 1/2 -3/4 full. It may be just that simple and probably is. I didn’t think it would make that significant of a difference but maybe it just needs more! Makes me wonder if I put something like 80 pound braid to help fill it up faster.

Put mono line on the reel until it is partially filled and add the braid line until the reel is full. 20 lb mono as a backer will fill the reel much quicker and will save the expense of filling the reel with braid. These mechanical line counter reels are not super accurate and if they are not fully spooled it will compound the the error. Fishing vertically say 20-30 feet they are pretty close. If you are trolling letting out say 125 feet the reel will be less accurate but, here you are looking for repeatability. If you are,catching fish at a certain trolling,speed with a certain amount of line out you just repeat the process no need to be so accurate. Spool up and go getum

Well I feel like a big dummy! I re-spooled them with 80-pound braid and before I cut the string from the big spool, I would march it out to 25 feet and 50 feet in my drive way and finally found how much string I need to put on it to be accurate. Totally my fault....my first time to really use line counter reels but I'm glad its figured out now. I think I got super lucky when I spooled them the first time but a few months ago when I upgraded to different string I was stingy and didn't spool it enough. FYI, if you own a 6500 LC and want to put 80 pound braid on it...Zero the line counter out and reel until it says "675" and stop spooling. This will be the perfect amount of string. Its probably about 100 yards of string if I were guessing.

One of the four reels still will not zero out though no matter what I do. I am almost betting there is a shad scale that slipped into the housing and I have not found a way to clean it out. They are solid reels if I haven't had such heck zeroing the counters out.

I use two Shimano Tekota 300LC for anything on the lakes around here. I replaced my 2 Abu Garcia Abassadeur 6000 (junk, side plate broke off from just reeling in a fish). For line, I use 40# Super 8 Slick Power Pro. I use a ton of backing and about 300 yds of braid. Make sure the spool is full to about 90%. So far. the Line counter has be very accurate for me. And the Tekota's are built like a tank.

Awesome! I’m hoping the Tekota 300 I have coming next week will be a reel that lasts a “reel” long time. I can’t believe I’m about to replace the whole line contour out on one of my almost brand new Abu 6500. It will not zero out at all and worst yet....their customer service will not return my two emails. I think I will make them my downrigger rods as I don’t care about the line counter for that and switch over to tekota 300s for shad fishing

Good luck. Tight lines!