No Reel Damage

If you’re flying to an exotic fishing trip, I strongly recommend that you do whatever you can to bring your reels in the airplane cabin with you. Many lodges, guides and outfitters provide rods, so If you lose your sticks, you can probably borrow some. If your lures get misplaced, you should be able to buy or grab a few from a sympathetic friend.

I can tell you from experience, however, that borrowing reels is often a nightmare. First off, there’s the lefthanded vs. righthanded issue that makes 50 percent of the casting reels out there unusable for most of us. Second, anyone who has fished for any period of time is picky about their reels – I know I prefer certain brands, models, and handle lengths, and I get them serviced regularly so they’re not crusted up and balky.

Even if the airline makes you strip off all of your line, believe me when I say that carrying your reels on can be a lifesaver. No matter what, I have extra spools of fluorocarbon, mono and braid, as appropriate, with me anyway. I apologize in advance to you ladies and you tender-eared readers, but consider your reels to be like your balls: Don’t let them out of your reach and protect them from sudden impacts.

For this purpose, I’ve used a variety of soft-sided bags to hold my balls – I mean, my reels – during flights over the years. Usually I take six baitcasters to Mexico, and probably four or five when I go to Brazil. My solutions have been ok, but not perfect. I’ve usually ended up wrapping the reels in socks or old Crown Royal bags and then padding them with bags of soft plastics. Still, they move around inside the case and the bag itself is awkward to pack in a larger backpack or carry-on. That’s why I’m excited about this new reel case from Yooneek Products, which is made of neoprene. It has individual holders for each of six reels, and has a padded divider between each set of three that allows you to secure additional items. I’m sure it’ll be good for all sorts of different fragile items – from fly reels to electronics, but I feel like they made this one just for me and my six traveling reels.

Now I’m anxious to get on a plane and see how it performs under duress. There’s no worse feeling than to arrive at a distant fishing spot and to find that your tackle didn’t make – except perhaps arriving and finding that it’s there but broken. This seems like inexpensive insurance against that possibility.