That's why I got this thing for Christmas. A 50# fish at 185ft is tailor made for an electric reel. I'm not macho in the least! I usually fish this time of year in deep water up until perhaps April or May. 150-200ft is average but this year I plan on making a few Cod/Pollock/Jumbo Porgy/SeaBass runs over the winter. The depth usually is between 150-300ft. Will be using my 50-100# rated graphite conventional jigging rod too. I could have gotten the Tanacom 750 which is good for 1000ft depths but I won't be fishing for Tilefish or anything that deep in this area.
Cmon Cman, it's not like your chasing Moby Dick, electric reel? Good old fashion muscle should do the trick. When I was a kid, I used a can and some line.
Well Red, when you were a kid, you were probably fishing for bluegills too. I would strongly suggest you not use a hand line these days. Good old fashion muscle works but so does having an edge. Keep in mind seawater weighs 64lbs/ft3. factor in the depth and the weight of the fish and a 20lb fish can easily feel like 100lbs or more. Not sure if you're ever heard of tile fishing, but those guys fish up to 1000ft depths and the deep drop guys in Florida fish between 500 and 2000ft. That's a lot of force. I'll be fishing just on the edge of that for Cod and they can get up to 30lbs or more at depths of 100-300ft. This reel isn't for SeaBass or Fluke or even Bluefish. Its for the deep dwellers.
Oh yeah I was....but on a serious note, wouldn't that amount of work kill any edge you have just due to the limited amount of battery life?
That battery is a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery rated at that 10AH output for 8hrs continuous running. It only weighs 2lbs and can fit in a small bag that I tie off on the boat rail. The older and heavier SLA (riding mower) batteries weight a lot more with less running time. As long as you have a 12v source, you can run the reel so for those fortunate enough to have an offshore boat, all you'd have to do is power the reel from the boat battery and you're good to go.
First blackfish trip of the year scheduled for Saturday! Unfortunately, because of where we'll be fishing, I won't be using the new rig. Too many hangups will be happening as we'll probably be fishing in the rocks. Looks like I'll wait for Cod/Pollack/Ling season to take off near the end of the month or early January.
thanks to Climate Change, the ocean doesn't get frozen over any more at these latitudes. Actually, more often than not the water temps are higher than the air temps so its warmer out on the water than on land. At any rate, I got gear that good down to -35F.