"AJ" wrote in message
.net...

Fished all morning with my trusty Calcutta 150, St Croix 6.5' medium
fast rod, 10 lb. Berkley Sensation, and had zero backlashes, which is
pretty much normal. Sure glad I had it when that Northern shot out from
nowhere, hit the lure 3 ft. away from the boat going like a freight
train, and dove under the boat into the weeds. He pretty much trashed my
spinnerbait, but I figure it was worth it.

I don't know why baitcasting would serve you better than spinning in that
situation if you were also using 10# line and a similar strength rod and
proper drag setting.

I'm not sure what it's called, but what happens to me with spinning
reels, particularly wide spool ones when I try a cast just a little
farther than it wants to go, is about 100-200 loops of line come off the
spool all at once and try to make it through the first guide. The abrupt
stop sometimes send whatever was tied on the end off into the deep blue.
Unlike minor backlashes on a baitcaster, there's no way to fix this
mess.

I call them spinning tangles or birds' nests. I use only spinning these days
but when I used some baitcasting years ago I didn't have many backlash
problems and what I did have were not nearly as bad as spinning tangles
which, fortunately, don't occur that often. If you're getting 100+ loops
coming off at once you may be using a line that's too stiff for spinning
reels and/or allowing loops to form on the reel spool.