I have a Shimano Symetre 2500 that I recently purchased specifically to use for wacky rigs and drip shot. I have had horrible luck keeping this reel from what appears to be a spinning backlash. I have added line by using my Berkley line spooler to avoid twisting, and that still doesn't help. I'll make a cast and look down and there is a complete bee's nest in my hands.

What am I doing wrong? Someone please walk me back off the ledge.........

try that. i had a plueger that gave me problems til i tried that trick

Yes, common problem with folks new to spinning reels. Watch the video above and try it again. You are Spooling the line backwards. Lay the line spool like you see in the video in a 5 gallon bucket and put some water in it. This will hold the spool steadier plus give you a little resistance to the spool to add some tension to the line as you are reeling it onto the spool.

Good Luck and good fishing.

Tony

Good deal. I'll give that a try. I have even had it spooled at Cabela's and they may need to look at this video. I have not had a spool yet not do this. It does make sense though........Thanks!

Another Tip. ON any spinning reel if you will learn to engage the spool with your finger and not the handle it will decrease line twist. I never use the handle anymore, after the cast I just flip the bail back in place with the tip of my finger. Of course I feather my cast with my hand on long cast or pitches so it is already there. One of the beautifull things about spinning tackle is the end of the cast to where your lure falls at a more vertical presentation than is possible with a bait caster unless you manually pull line of the spool. I used to wonder why it was I seemed to catch more fish on a Spinning setup when fishing plastics until I realized my fall rate was much better on the cast. Made sense to me.

You don't use the line spooler for spinning reels. Lay the line spool on the floor and spool the line onto the reel the same way it is spooled on the line spool.

Put braid on it with a mono or fluro leader. No more line twist.

One other thing from a guy that spent most of his time on the water with a spinning reel in his hands. Your lures may be what is twisting your line. I fished most of the time with a Texas rigged soft plastics weightless or with split shot or 1/16 to 1/8 oz. bullet weight. When I first started this style of fishing it didn't take me long to figure out that I was getting a check at the end of the day a lot more often so I wasn't giving it up, but like you I was getting my butt kicked by line twist. My problem was solved completely by the way I threaded the soft plastics on the hook. The main thing is to come out of the head of the lure as close as you can; a 1/4" or less, from the head of the lure. This keeps the head of the lure from flexing and if it can bend at all it will cause the lure to cork skrew when being retrieved and put tons of twist in your line. I don't recall when the last line twist I had but it has been a while. Whacky rigging and drop shot could be tricky because I could see where both set ups could twist your line. Using a weight on the dropshot that can swivel and using a swivel with a leader on the hook for a wacky rig should solve these issues.....

+1.

If you fish with braid,sweevel +fluorocarbon leader with spinning reel you don't have this problem.

Thanks guys. I'm going to use all of this info to improve my confidence in the spinning gear. I like the way it fishes certain baits, but the frustration was about to cause me to throw it in the lake. I appreciate everyone's input.

Also, make sure you're not filling the spool to capacity. I only fill about 3/4 to capacity, otherwise the line just peels off the spool into a tangled mess. I've bought reels at a couple of the major sporting goods stores and they both put on too much line.

Ditto what Jean said! Been using braid for a while now, and have eliminated that problem.

This too.......and when I respooled before a tournament to make double sure I had no twist in my line on the spool, I used to spool up just like the you tube video states and then I would go outside with the whole rig with a snap swivel at the end of the line, hook the swivel on to something; usually my mail box, and walk down the road until all the line was off the reel. Then I would reel it all back up holding slight tension on the line. That takes all the quess work out of it. Once you do this there are no twist......