What baitcasting reel would you reccomend on a 9 or 10 foot surf rod? I have a Penn gti 320 and a garcia 6500 C-4, woud these sufice and what are your preferences? I personally don't feel comfortable throwing anything longer that 10 feet so I tend to stick with the 9 footer. Thanks for your opinions.....

those should suffice for smaller varieties of fish...but i think a penn 545 or 555 GS would do you a whole lot of good for something like that.

I was looking at the penn 545, since it doesn't have a worm guide how do you keep the line from bunching up on one side? Another question, is there any way to put a larger handle on an abu-garcia 6500 c-4? Thanks for the reply.

Get a daiwa saltist, shimano torium, or a penn squider or jigmaster.

the Penn 545 is a great choice! for the same money though, you can get the 555 which holds an extra 150 yards of line. to keep line from bunching up, use your thumb as a guide...that's what i do on my 4/0 Senator and it works just fine

Yeah, When reels dont have a level wind, use your thumb like saltwater_guy said. At first it will be a huge pain, like going from spinning reels to baitcasting. But you will get used to it in 20 long reel ins or so. Depending on what you want to catch, you may want to look into newells. They are SUPER fast and smooth reels. I'm throwing a 646, holds 400 yards of 80lb. I bet you would be surprised at how easy it is to throw a 6/0 newell. You should give em a try.

i've heard that newell is actually some sort of off-branded penn, but i'm not sure on that. i am sure that penn's are the best reels in the world...strong, durable, huge line caps, excellent service and most importantly...fully American-made.

Newell's are expensive junk. I've had 2 of them and
they break. The reel foot mounts in to a grafite frame.
An accidentail blow and it will snap of the rod.

I'm no big shot but I have fished the surf for 20 years and have had all sorts of reels,
cheapos', epessive and all manner in between.

A surf reel has to be clean to work well. Depending on how often you use it it will
need to be cleaned / stripped every 3-4 trips
or its performance will fade. for this reason I like to stick with a simple reel to clean.

Has any one tried to clean large penn reels.
Thats a lot of parts!

There is a exception in the peen line up and it is my main gun...A Penn "Sea Boy". It is cheap,
cast far, tough as nails and easy to clean.
It will handle any Red and sharks in the 5 foot range.

Another good reel that is VERY rugged with a level wind and fairly easy to clean is a Ambassador 7000.

This is just my .02 cents...hope it helps.
Tight lines.

Bert

Thanks for the replies, I would imagine it be difficult to guide the line and fight a pretty good sized fish. Might feel different after I try it though.