[Dean McClain]

Skeeter stated the big truth, that you are the one who controls your retrieve speed; if you're allowing your reel to dictate the speed that your lure travels back to you, then you are not concentrating enough! I think that reel manufacturers have tried to lead people into thinking that there is a "generic" cranking speed we all generally use and that we need to buy the retrieve speed that best suits the individual technique. Not if you are fishing at your highest level! The best anglers are, as much as possible, aware at all times of everything their lure is doing, including the speed at which it is traveling. I can pick up another reel with a different retrieve ratio and immediately recognize the different retrieve speed by the way the lure feels and so should anyone with their head in the game.

At an advertised 6:1 and filled with line to its proper capacity, a baitcaster should be picking up line at the rate of 26 to 28 inches per each turn of the handle. As skeeter noted, this provides plenty of power with which to winch any bass out of cover, along with the speed to get the job done, because if you don't have enough speed you won't be able to turn a fish's head and keep him coming. No amount of retrieve power will help you if the fish gets you tangled in cover.

The only scenario in which I might want an even faster reel would be on a flipping stick, in order to immediately take up slack on fish that you might jerk out of the water on hookset when they are in very skinny water, or to get my bait back to make another pitch into cover, but this is not a case where one works the lure with reel retrieve. If you can keep all your other reels at about that 6:1 though, you will develop through familiarity even more feel for each lure that you use.

Dean