Bailess spinning reel

[Kalait]

Has anyone used a bailess spinning reel BTB? What did you think.

[Ron Mc]

nobody replied, so I joined in. Van Staal sells their version. Of course, Penn Spinfisher VI.
No reason you can't use one - you simply use your finger to guide the line onto the bailless rider.
Some big reels with sealed bearings don't readily close the bail, anyway, without a bit of wind momentum.
They work fine for trolling and jigging - casting is where the bail has an advantage, though people also use them in the surf.
That said, in freshwater XUL, aka threadlining using 1-2-lb tippet for line, people cut the bails from their Daiwa UL reels and use them as finger-bail.
Corpusfishing might be a good place to ask your question, where people may have tried them in the surf.

[Kalait]

nobody replied, so I joined in. Van Staal sells their version. Of course, Penn Spinfisher VI.
No reason you can't use one - you simply use your finger to guide the line onto the bailless rider.
Some big reels with sealed bearings don't readily close the bail, anyway, without a bit of wind momentum.
They work fine for trolling and jigging - casting is where the bail has an advantage, though people also use them in the surf.
That said, in freshwater XUL, aka threadlining using 1-2-lb tippet for line, people cut the bails from their Daiwa UL reels and use them as finger-bail.
Corpusfishing might be a good place to ask your question, where people may have tried them in the surf.

Thanks.

[don.owen]

I modified, out of necessity, a Penn some years back when my kid dropped it and bent the bail. Cut it about an inch from the roller and smoothed the cut-end. Worked good once I got used to the finger catch process. One caution though, a little slack coupled with the right breeze and lack of attention can cause a problem. Lost a spool of new line to what I suspect was a World Record Sturgeon when the line obviously came out from under the bail and the fish just swam away. Of course the line was knotted to the spool but that was not a problem for the fish. What haunts me is “is how long was I distracted that that fish could swim away with all that line”. Just one of those weird happenings I guess. Lesson learned!

[Kalait]

As I buy new reels, I will not be buying the bailess reels, as you never know when the wind is going to change and I don't need any help missing fish

[TrailChaser]

I cut the bail wire off a reel to try it out. It only took a few throws to get the feel, and then it was like normal without having to kick open the bail every cast. I only did it once, but I've thought about asking kastking about making a bailless model for inshore.

I used it in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Atxb0kH_8&t=1s