Length of spool line

[ucfdiver]

I don't ocean dive often, but what's the benefit to not just using a reel all the time? Especially one like light monkey's NFL 200ft primary where it's fairly small and can be stored on the butt dring and forgotten about until it's needed. I guess the obvious is that it's not in a pocket so it could get lost, but anything else I'm missing?

 

[Druid]

Your line should be at least 1.5 times as long as your depth. So for 130' dive you need at least 195' of line.

What the heck for? Maybe you need this much line shooting a bag from the bottom of the English channel, but locally 99% of my dives I use a 100ft spool cause I'm not shooting a bag any deeper than 70ft (EAN50 switch depth). Yes we have current in Puget Sound but for most dives 70ft is <10mins up from the bottom. So at most you're a few hundred feet from the boat when the bag hits the surface.

Sorry, I should have said your line should be 1.5 times greater than the depth you intend to shoot your bag from. Where I dive there's often a current running at the end of a dive so I deploy my DSMB from the bottom for reasons that have been explained above.

I don't ocean dive often, but what's the benefit to not just using a reel all the time? Especially one like light monkey's NFL 200ft primary where it's fairly small and can be stored on the butt dring and forgotten about until it's needed. I guess the obvious is that it's not in a pocket so it could get lost, but anything else I'm missing?

My a spool is a backup, normally I will use a reel. It's bulkier but I clip it to a d-ring and I've not lost it from there yet. Apart from anything else, it's a major pita winding in 50m onto a spool

 

[rjack321]

I don't ocean dive often, but what's the benefit to not just using a reel all the time? Especially one like light monkey's NFL 200ft primary where it's fairly small and can be stored on the butt dring and forgotten about until it's needed. I guess the obvious is that it's not in a pocket so it could get lost, but anything else I'm missing?

Reels tangle more often than spools.

Personally I use 100ft spools down to about 140-150fsw or 150ft spools down to ~230fsw. We don't have "seas" or swells here that obscure an SMB and I'm not interested in the deco the few deeper wrecks require (too damn cold). I'll usually spool up but when the current is running I'll let the spool hang below me - when you accidently let go there's more time to re-grab the line. I don't let the line go horizontal that just obscures your position and creates more drag. 150ft is fine shooting from a 120fsw stop although we come up the upline more often than not anyway.

If I were doing one of the 270-310fsw wrecks here (rare) I'd bring a 400ft reel.

 

[KMD]

Switching between 100' and 150' spools is too much of a pain so I pretty much normalized on a 150' spool w/#18 line on it.

Many of our deeper dives down here can be planned such that you come up to at least 110' before leaving the reef.


For deeper dives that may have the potential to blue water it all from the bottom, I bring long a 400' reef.