im just curious what hand you guys cast with and what hand you reel in with

i cast with my right hand and reel in with my left... is that norma?

I cast with my left, and retrieve with my right.

Cast right, reel left. Too awkward switching hands, I couldn't do it with a baitcaster and can't do it with a fly rod

cast right reel left.

I think it's whatever works well for each person, in this case there is no right and wrong. Icast with left and reel/strip line with right.

Depends on what I'm fishing for and with...when I use a light 3 wt fishing for pond BG, I cast right and reel left. I use the right hand to fight the fish on the line(not the reel) and reel in after the catch is completed.

When in saltwater fishing for the big three, Bones, Permit, and Tarpon, I always cast right, reel right and always, always fight the fish on the reel. Also, always, always strip and strip set with the left hand.

I cast left and reel with right for fly fishing. Spinning and bait casting I use my right for casting. Weird I guess.

Cast mostly right handed, strip left and reel right.

cast right, reel left

I'm right handed and I've used open-face spinning gear all my life and it feels wrong to reel with my right hand.

Cast right, reel left.

When I started fishing saltwater or steelhead, with big fish that could pull off lots of line and backing, I switched to casting right and reeling right, since I'd heard you can reel faster with your dominant hand. something that's often needed if you're taking in lots of line.

But I've been switching all my larger reels back to left hand wind, since I find it more comfortable.

Very interesting results - it appears MickFly and I are in a small minority. Cast (mostly) right handed, but reel right handed!

I'm just way faster cranking right handed and when I want to crank I usually want to do it fast!

Personally, I've never found switching hands to play a fish to be much of a problem. And that usually only happens once a fish has put me on the spool!

Fly rod i cas with right and retrieve with left. Do the same with spinning gear, its just akward the other way around. Casting equipment i cast either hand just depends on the cast, but mostly right and retrieve right handed.

I'm a southpaw who cast left and reels right on all gear.

It doesn't really matter with most fish....but nearly all flyguys who specialize in big hard running fish reel with the right hand unless they cast left handed. Two reasons:

1. For distance casting with shooting heads you will notice most experienced guys will rotate the rod to put the handle up (as in toward the sky)as the line shoots.
This keeps the monofiliment shooting line from snagging on the handle on the way out.

2. When a hard running fish starts ripping out all the line you have stripped in at warp speed....turning the reel handle keeps it out of the way.

Otherwise....I can't see where it makes much difference.

CASTING THE SHOOTING HEAD

While shooting heads can be cast with a remarkable degree of accuracy, the basic function of a shooting head (SH) is distance casting. If you want to make an 80-foot cast, you would first begin by stripping off the 30-foot SH and 50 feet of shooting-line from the reel, straightening both by stretching the line tightly between your hands in three- to four-foot increments to illuminate line coils, reducing tangling. With the shooting line stretched neatly on the deck (or in a stripping basket), you would then false-cast until the SH and at least five or six feet of shooting-line (called "overhang") were extended beyond the rod tip (caution here: never extend more overhang than you can handle [about 8 feet, max], or you'll get into trouble). You would false-cast the head and a few feet of overhang in about the same manner as you would if using a standard line. Then you simply "shoot line", directing the cast with the rod tip as though you were aiming toward the horizon. The SH will take off like a missile, if your timing is right, pulling the 50 feet of shooting line easily behind it. A tip to help add extra distance to your cast once the head is on its way, is to lift the rod butt, causing the entire rod to be somewhat parallel to the surface so the shooting-line doesn't have to climb uphill through the guides. Also, turn the reel handle toward the sky, doing this does two things: keeps the line from fouling on the handle, and helps reduce line-friction. For a 100-foot cast, strip 70 feet of shooting-line from the reel, and so on.

Casting a SH is not difficult, but using one for the first time (even for an experienced caster ), may feel foreign and be somewhat intimidating at first. The most noticeable difference between a SH and a full-length line is that the head feels extremely heavy and difficult to handle, even though it weighs the same when compared to the first 30 feet of another line of equal size designation. It is the "hinging" effect caused by the junction with the small-diameter shooting line that accounts for this feeling of heaviness, which is even more acute when using mono shooting line. Additionally, sinking lines are markedly smaller in diameter and are more dense than floaters, which makes them drop more quickly once the line-loop unrolls because they do not possess the "sailing" properties of fat, floating lines. Conversely, being smaller in diameter with more mass, equates to greater line speed, and this is the reason why skinny sinking lines carry large flies through the air farther, with greater ease. Even when fishing near or even on the surface, if you can get by with using an intermediate or even faster sinking density - your casts will sail easily farther, particularly in the wind.

I copied this from Dan Blanton's website.

Dan Blanton Casting lessons