Right or left handed winding?

[Herm]

A quick question for you all?

I bought (another) new rod the other day and got talking to the nice young fellow at The Tackle Warehouse about this very subject

I always fished with an Alvey, so always held the rod with my left hand and used my right hand for winding in, but now with the purchase of the new rod/s and spinning reels, I can see why it would make sense to cast and hold the rod with the right hand and wind with the left.

The Tackle Warehouse guy said he felt abit "unco" to start with you get used to it quick enough. So I am figuring that with my lack of success at the moment - it couldn't hurt and I am thinking about giving it a go!

Has anyone else tried changing over?

Cheers
Janine

[bassfanatic5]

Have given it a go a couple of times and like you i started on alveys as a kid, so i keep going back to the right. What i have found is that i always use two handed casts be it baitcaster or spin and i automatically change the rod to the left handed position during the cast so i am ready to wind right handed when the lure lands and when the handle is on the left it stuffs me up.

Damien

[Davemclean]

I am right handed and wind with my left, its the way I was taught, lol

[carpel]

i wish i had started with my left when i shifted off alveys .. too late now, and overheads , makes more sense to lift with your strong arm wind with the other.. but on the rare occasion a fish is getting the better of me i will just swap hands for the lift and swap back as i wind down.

[charleville]

I have seen the experts like Rex Hunt say that the left hand should be the winding hand but I struggle with the concept because lifting the rod is a far less complex activity than winding and palming and flicking bail arms over and flicking bait-runner levers etc so I remain happy to lift with my left dumb arm and do all of the clever things with my right hand.

[melb_guy]

I used to be Right handed...till i a mate....no wi am holding my rod on the Left hand and wind on the Right.
Yes it does take a while to get use to be i am all good now.
His theories was that for fighting a fish it's you need the strongest side in my case it's Right handed and for winding the reel you don't know lots of power to do so.

Cheers

[rob tranter]

Ambidextrous
So it doesn't matter
But normally cast left handed, and everything else falls in to place
I can cast right handed but not as good as left.
Rob

[finga]

Is Pete telling you to use that goofy footed little black casting reel that he has and can't use??
I wind with righty.

[nigelr]

Originally wound with my right, a la Steelite, Alvey, then much later started getting into Mitchells and other large French reels so learned to left hand wind.
(LHW Mitchell 498s are 1/2 the price or less of the RHW 499s!)
Plus it's better to pull in large shovels (25kg+ ) with the stronger right arm.
Strangely, I prefer to RHW when spinning, or anywhere where I need to wind very quickly, and my inshore threadies on snapper rods I prefer RHW.
Love the LHW for the beach at night however!
In Euro and US, LHW is more the norm I believe.
Cheers.

[snelly1971]

Right for me

[slabjig]

In the US, it's far more common for spinning reels to be set up for left hand retrieve, however baitcasting reels are more often used with right hand retrieve. I much prefer the left hand retrieve, although I'm right handed. I can start the retrieve immediately, instead of shifting the rod from right to left hand after the cast, and this has meant more fish, because often the strike comes as soon as the lure hits the water. For offshore tackle, which doesn't have a levelwind, I do use right hand retrieve, but casting just isn't much of an issue with this gear.

[webby]

The only problem is you have to cast to either the right or left side of the fish to get them to bite depending on what side you wish to retreive. ?????
regards

[revs57]

Hi Janine,

I prefer to Cast Right and wind left, saves swapping the rod and makes for quicker and less complicated transition, well does for me with spin gear. My overheads are all right handed, found Left hand wind overheads more difficult to get hold of and no one stocked them, but could order them in.

Give Pete a g'day for me

Cheers

Rhys

[Jeremy87]

This question has come up a few times before. My basic answer, while in some situations it can be better to wind with your non-dominant hand, if you mix it up a lot and do many different styles of lure casting then its best to wind with your dominant hand.

The reason behind my rational is you dominant hand is stronger and capable of faster more co-ordinated movements. I find it very seldom (never personally encountered this before) in light tackle situations that a fish will over power you non-dominant hand and consequently brick you. In the situations where this would make a difference you are normally chasing deep-water reef fish/pelagics etc where you can use both hands to pull the fish up and your stronger hand to wind as anyone who has fought a fish for more than half and hour will know it is often your winding arm that gets the biggest work out. This is the reason why a lot of large game reels only come in right hand wind because most of the population is right handed. Also when high speed spinning it pays to use your dominant hand as your can spin faster and for longer periods without fatiguing.

The only advantage that can be gained from using you non-dominant hand for winding comes from casting spin reels. It enables you to quickly make the transition from casting to winding, as only your bottom hand needs to move to reach the handle. The same advantage is not as prevalent in bait casters as you need to move you top hand anyway to go from a casting grip to palming grip. Though I can comfortably switch right to left hand winding within about 15-20mintues of fishing I find this confusion does not out way the benefits of having the repetitive reflex action of winding with you dominant hand.

I feel that the answer of the question is also closely intertwined with your casting style. There is something you can do to improve your ability to make quick or difficult casts while still having the benefit of the short transition from casting to winding while using spinning reels. This is learning to use your non-dominant hand as your main casting arm. I am right handed and my dad is left handed, so through imitation I learnt to cast with my left hand on top, while I cast a slug further with my right hand on top when bashing around snags I predominantly seem to go back to left hand on top for the same reason that people use a non dominant hand to wind i.e. faster casting quicker transition. This also has the added advantage of making more casting angles available to you by simply swapping hand position and making casting in a boat full of people easier.

In the end what is important is that the feel comfortable when you are fishing, don’t be afraid to try new things but just because rexy is doing it doesn’t mean that it’s the only way. My casting style has taken about 5 years to develop through imitation of other better casters and I now regard myself as about average with a baitcaster and better than most with a spinning reel in terms of accuracy.

[Fafnir]

Left hand wind for me, on light gear using soft plastics. Right hand wind on pretty much everything else. Don't have much trouble switching between, but overall preference is to use my more dominant right hand.