HOW PE LINE RESHAPED THE MODERN JIGGING REEL
From Bigger Reels to Smaller, Lighter and Stronger Machines
Modern jigging reels have changed dramatically.
Today, a relatively compact reel can carry hundreds of metres of high-strength PE line, work effectively in deep water, generate serious drag, and fight fish that once demanded much larger tackle.
It is easy to explain this only through stronger gears, better drag systems, improved bearings, aluminium frames and more precise manufacturing.
But that misses an important part of the story.
The line changed too.
The development of modern PE braid changed the relationship between line strength, line diameter and line capacity. In deep jigging, where hundreds of metres of line may be in use at one time, that change has had a direct influence on how large a reel needs to be.
This does not mean that better PE line automatically creates a smaller reel, or that smaller is always better.
The more useful question is:
How much reel do we actually need to perform the job?
That question sits at the centre of modern jigging reel design.
1. Deep Jigging Begins with Depth
When we talk about a heavy-duty jigging reel, the first question is usually:
How big a fish can it handle?
But from a reel-design perspective, there is another question that comes first:
How deep are you fishing?
Fishing at 50 metres is very different from fishing at 150, 200 or 300 metres.
The deeper we fish, the more line must leave the spool. And a reel cannot simply carry the same amount of line as the water depth. Extra capacity is needed for current, drift, line angle, changing bottom depth and, most importantly, the run of a powerful fish after the hook-up.
A serious deep-jigging reel may therefore need to carry several hundred metres of high-strength main line.
This is where line diameter becomes critical.
For the same length of line, a thicker line requires more spool volume. Increase the diameter enough, and the reel needs a wider or deeper spool simply to carry the required capacity.
A larger spool then usually means a larger frame and, ultimately, a larger and heavier reel.
So historically, the size of a heavy-duty reel was not determined only by the size of the fish.
There was another very practical limitation:
The reel had to physically hold enough line of sufficient strength.
Modern PE braid changed this relationship.
By providing the required strength at a smaller diameter, PE reduced the spool volume needed to carry hundreds of metres of working line.
And once the required line began to occupy less space, reel designers gained something extremely valuable:
the freedom to make the machine more compact.
This is one of the important starting points in the evolution of the modern jigging reel.
2. PE Changed the Relationship Between Strength, Diameter and Capacity
The most important development in PE line is not simply that modern braid has become stronger.
For deep jigging, the more important question is:
How much strength can we achieve at a practical line diameter?
Modern PE braid uses high-strength polyethylene fibres, and improvements in fibre technology, braiding structure and manufacturing have continued to increase performance.
A good example of how far this has progressed is Shimano OCEA 17+. Its PE #8 specification has a published maximum straight-line strength of approximately 139 lb / 63.1 kg. It uses a 17-strand construction—16 outer strands surrounding a central core.
That does not mean an angler should apply 63 kg of drag to PE #8. Breaking strength and practical fishing drag are very different things.
The important point is what modern line technology makes possible:
a very high level of line strength can now be packaged into a relatively small cross-section.
For a jigging reel, this matters immediately.
If we need 400 metres of working line, a thicker line consumes more spool volume. If adequate strength can be achieved with a smaller-diameter PE line, the same 400 metres requires less space.
That creates the possibility of a smaller spool and, eventually, a more compact reel.
But in deep jigging, smaller diameter brings another major advantage.
The Line Itself Creates Drag Underwater
At 30 or 40 metres, a small difference in line diameter may not always feel dramatic.
At 200 or 300 metres, it becomes much more important.
There may now be hundreds of metres of line exposed to moving water. The greater the line diameter, the greater the area available for the current to act upon.
As hydrodynamic drag increases, the line is pushed away from the vertical, creating a larger line angle and more line belly.
The problem is no longer simply:
Can the jig reach the bottom?
The better question is:
Can the angler still control the jig effectively once it gets there?
In deep water, every movement made at the rod and reel has to communicate through a very long length of line.
A thinner PE line reduces the influence of current, helping the jig remain closer to a vertical presentation and improving bottom contact and control. This is why line diameter becomes increasingly important as jigging depth increases.
So improved PE line provides two separate advantages at the same time:
Smaller diameter → less spool volume
and
Smaller diameter → less resistance in the water
The first creates new possibilities for reel design.
The second improves fishing efficiency.
This is why, in deep jigging, the goal should not simply be to use the strongest line available.
A better engineering approach is:
Use the smallest practical line diameter that still provides the strength, abrasion margin and safety required for the intended fishing.
That distinction is important.
In deep jigging, strength matters—but strength per unit of diameter matters even more.
3. When the Line Takes Less Space, the Reel Can Become Smaller
Once PE line reduces the spool volume required for a given working capacity, an obvious question appears:
If 400 metres of suitable line can now fit on a smaller spool, do we still need the same size reel?
In many jigging applications, the answer is no.
This is where PE development begins to influence the physical architecture of the reel.
A smaller required spool volume can allow a more compact spool, narrower frame and smaller overall package. If this can be achieved without sacrificing the required line capacity, drag capability or structural strength, there is little benefit in carrying unnecessary size and weight.
A good modern example is the Daiwa Saltiga 15. Despite weighing approximately 485 g and using a 52 mm spool, it can carry around PE #3 / 400 m. Daiwa specifically notes that this compact 15-size platform achieves line capacity comparable to the larger 35N-size Saltiga of an earlier generation.
That is an important change in design philosophy.
The objective is not simply:
Make the reel smaller.
It is:
Make the reel no larger than it needs to be.
In Jigging, Weight Reduction Has a Real Purpose
Saving 100 or 200 grams may not sound significant when a reel is sitting on a display counter.
After several hours of jigging, it is a different story.
Jigging is repetitive, active fishing:
Drop → Work the jig → Retrieve → Drop again.
The angler is continually moving and controlling the rod, reel and jig as one system.
Every unnecessary gram becomes part of that system.
Reducing reel weight can lower fatigue, reduce the inertia of the complete rod-and-reel combination, and improve balance—particularly as modern jigging rods themselves have become increasingly light.
For this reason, weight reduction in a jigging reel is not simply a marketing exercise.
Lower weight can be functional performance.
But this is where the engineering problem becomes much more difficult.
PE may allow the spool to become smaller.
The frame may become more compact.
The complete reel may become lighter.
But one thing has not become smaller:
the fish.
A large kingfish, amberjack or tuna does not care whether the reel weighs 800 grams or 500 grams.
The drag still has to control the load.
The gears still have to transmit torque.
The shafts and bearings still have to support the drivetrain.
The frame still has to maintain alignment under load.
So the real challenge is not:
How small can we make a jigging reel?
It is:
How small and light can we make it without reducing the capability required to do the job?
That distinction defines much of modern jigging reel engineering.
PE gave designers the opportunity to remove unnecessary size.
Engineering determines whether they can remove that size without removing strength.
4. A Smaller Spool Creates a New Problem: Retrieve Speed
Making the spool smaller saves space and weight, but it also introduces a mechanical trade-off.
A smaller spool retrieves less line with each revolution.
This matters in deep jigging.
Imagine the jig is working at 300 metres.
If the reel retrieves 100 cm of line per handle turn, bringing the jig back from that depth requires roughly 300 turns.
At 80 cm per turn, it requires about 375.
That is 75 additional handle turns on a single retrieve.
Repeat this throughout a full day of deep jigging and the difference becomes significant—not only in fatigue, but also in the amount of fishing time spent simply recovering the jig.
There is another complication.
The Deeper You Fish, the Smaller the Effective Spool Diameter Becomes
As hundreds of metres of PE leave the spool, the remaining line level falls.
The effective diameter of the loaded spool therefore becomes smaller.
This means that even if the mechanical gear ratio never changes, the actual amount of line recovered per handle turn decreases as more line is deployed.
In other words:
Gear ratio and retrieve rate are not the same thing.
Gear ratio tells us how many times the spool rotates for each turn of the handle.
What the angler actually experiences is line retrieve per crank, and that also depends on the effective spool circumference.
This is particularly important in deep jigging because so much line may leave the reel.
Higher Gear Ratios Help Recover the Lost Speed
One solution is straightforward:
increase the gear ratio.
For example, Shimano’s Ocea Jigger 1500 illustrates the difference clearly:
1500PG — 5.1:1 — approximately 78 cm per crank
1500HG — 6.4:1 — approximately 98 cm per crank
That difference of around 20 cm may seem small.
Across several hundred metres, it is not.
Higher retrieve speed allows an angler to recover a jig more quickly after an unsuccessful drop, reposition faster, and spend less time performing hundreds of low-value handle rotations.
But faster retrieve has another purpose.
It can also help control the jig.
Modern jigging is not simply a matter of lifting a piece of metal up and down.
Rod movement, handle rotation, line tension and controlled slack all contribute to the jig’s acceleration, fall and change of direction.
A faster line pickup allows the angler to remove unwanted slack more quickly, reconnect with the jig and use reel speed as part of the presentation.
After hook-up, fast line pickup can also be useful when a fish suddenly swims toward the boat and the angler needs to recover slack quickly to maintain tension.
So in a modern jigging reel, retrieve speed performs two jobs:
Recover the line.
Control the fishing.
But Higher Gear Is Not Free
If speed were the only requirement, every jigging reel could simply use the highest possible gear ratio.
They do not, for a good reason.
Higher gearing generally trades mechanical advantage for speed.
Under heavy drag, with a large fish or a heavy jig, a high-geared reel can require more input force at the handle than a lower-geared design.
This is why both PG — Power Gear and HG — High Gear designs continue to exist.
Neither is automatically better.
They solve different problems.
A lower ratio favours cranking power.
A higher ratio favours line speed.
The engineering challenge is finding the appropriate balance between:
Spool Diameter × Gear Ratio × Retrieve Speed × Cranking Torque
And this brings us to another consequence of reel miniaturisation.
Once a designer wants a smaller spool, a lighter reel and high retrieve speed, the gearbox, handle and supporting structure have to work harder to make those objectives coexist.
PE may have created the opportunity to make the reel smaller.
But making a small reel perform like a larger machine is where the difficult engineering begins.
5. Smaller Reel, Same Load: The Drivetrain Has to Work Harder
Once the spool and frame become smaller, another challenge appears:
There is less space inside the reel, but the required workload has not disappeared.
A compact jigging reel may still be expected to fight large kingfish, amberjack or tuna under substantial drag.
The gears still have to transmit high torque.
The shafts still have to remain stable.
The bearings still have to support the drivetrain.
And if a relatively high gear ratio is used to maintain retrieve speed, the system must deliver that speed without becoming excessively difficult to crank under load.
This is why a modern compact jigging reel cannot simply be a large reel scaled down.
The smaller the available package, the more efficiently that space has to be used.
A Strong Gear Is More Than a Strong Material
Reel specifications often focus on gear material:
Brass. Stainless steel. Aluminium. Oversized gears.
Material matters, but it is only one part of the system.
A reliable drivetrain also depends on gear diameter, tooth geometry, gear thickness, shaft support, bearing placement and—critically—the ability to maintain correct gear engagement under load.
A very strong gear can still perform poorly if the structure supporting it allows excessive movement.
If a shaft, bearing seat or frame deflects under load, the relationship between the gears can change.
The gears may still be intact, but their contact pattern is no longer what the designer intended.
That can increase friction, noise and wear, and reduce transmission efficiency.
So the real engineering question is not simply:
How strong is the gear?
It is:
Can the entire drivetrain remain correctly supported and aligned while it is carrying load?
That is a much more useful way to judge a heavy-duty jigging reel.
Less Space Makes Efficient Design More Important
A large reel has an obvious advantage: room.
There is more space for large gears, large bearings, substantial shafts and thick structural sections.
A compact reel has less freedom.
Simply making every component thicker may increase strength, but it also adds weight—and eventually defeats the purpose of making the reel compact in the first place.
The better approach is not necessarily to use more material.
It is to use material where it is needed.
High-load areas require sufficient stiffness and support. Areas carrying less structural load may be reduced.
This is the difference between simple weight reduction and structural efficiency.
A lightweight reel is easy to make if strength does not matter.
A very strong reel is relatively easy to make if weight does not matter.
Making a reel both light and strong is the difficult part.
The Handle Is Part of the Power System
The handle also becomes increasingly important as reel size decreases and gear ratio rises.
A higher gear ratio helps recover line quickly, but it provides less mechanical advantage than a lower ratio under otherwise similar conditions.
One way to help manage this trade-off is through handle leverage.
A suitably longer handle gives the angler a larger lever arm. A well-sized power knob can also make it easier to apply force comfortably and consistently.
This is why gear ratio alone does not tell us whether a jigging reel will feel powerful.
Two reels can both have a 6.2:1 ratio and still feel very different under load because of differences in:
Spool diameter, handle length, gear geometry, drivetrain efficiency and knob design.
These components should not be evaluated independently.
They form one mechanical system.
And this leads to an important principle in compact jigging reel design:
When physical size is reduced, performance has to be recovered through better use of geometry, materials and mechanical leverage.
PE line may reduce the space required for line storage.
But the space saved inside the overall tackle system is not free.
The smaller the machine becomes, the more carefully every remaining part has to work.
6. Drag: A Smaller Reel Still Has to Control a Big Fish
As jigging reels become smaller and lighter, one system cannot simply be reduced in proportion:
The drag system.
PE may require less spool space. The frame may become more compact. Total reel weight may fall.
But the load generated by the fish does not fall with it.
A compact jigging reel may still be expected to control a powerful fish under sustained pressure. That means the drag must remain smooth, predictable and stable even though it is being packaged into a smaller machine.
This creates another important distinction:
Maximum drag is not the same as usable drag.
A reel advertised with 20, 25 or 30 kg of maximum drag is not necessarily designed to fish continuously at that number.
Nor does a larger maximum number automatically make it a better reel.
For practical jigging, what matters more is how the drag behaves throughout the range that anglers actually use.
Drag Is a Load-Control System
The purpose of drag is not simply to stop the spool from turning.
It is to control how load is transferred between the fish, line, reel and angler.
When a fish accelerates and the load rises beyond the selected level, the spool must release line in a controlled manner.
That release should begin smoothly.
The drag should remain reasonably consistent as the spool rotates.
And after repeated runs generate heat, its behaviour should remain predictable.
This brings several engineering factors into play:
Friction material
Drag surface area
Pressure distribution
Heat management
Spool support
Bearing and shaft stability
They are all connected.
A drag washer can be made from an excellent material, but if pressure is distributed poorly across it, the system may still perform badly.
Likewise, a powerful drag is of limited value if the spool or supporting structure becomes unstable under the same load.
So once again, the complete system matters more than a single specification.
PE Makes Drag Quality More Noticeable
Modern PE also has much lower stretch than traditional nylon monofilament.
That gives jigging many advantages: better sensitivity, more direct jig control and clearer contact at depth.
But lower stretch also means there is less elasticity in the main line to absorb sudden changes in load.
With nylon, part of a sudden shock can be absorbed through line stretch.
With PE, the connection is more direct.
That makes the behaviour of the rod, leader and drag system particularly important.
The reel does not necessarily experience a greater fundamental load simply because PE is being used, but changes in load are transmitted through the system with less cushioning from the main line.
This is another reason why smooth drag startup and consistent drag behaviour matter so much in modern PE-based jigging tackle.
More Drag Is Not Always Better
There is also a practical limit to how much drag is useful.
The line may be extremely strong, but the entire fishing system still includes:
Knots, leader, hooks, rod, reel seat, angler and the ability to physically hold the tackle.
Every component has a limit.
A very high maximum-drag figure therefore tells us relatively little by itself.
A better question is:
How much drag can this reel deliver smoothly, repeatedly and reliably in the conditions for which it was designed?
That is a much more meaningful measure of a jigging reel.
And it fits the same design philosophy we have followed throughout this discussion.
The objective is not the highest number.
Just as the best jigging reel is not automatically the smallest or lightest, the best drag system is not automatically the one with the largest maximum figure.
The goal is sufficient performance, delivered with control.
When a large fish is attached to several hundred metres of PE, control is ultimately far more useful than a number printed on the box.
7. The Frame Is Not a Shell — It Is the Foundation of the Machine
As the reel becomes smaller, the frame becomes even more important.
It is easy to think of a reel frame as the outer structure that simply holds all the components together.
In a heavy-duty jigging reel, it does much more than that.
The frame establishes the physical relationship between the spool, shafts, gears and bearings.
In other words:
It establishes the geometry of the drivetrain.
That geometry needs to remain stable not only when the reel is sitting on a table, but also when the reel is under real fishing load.
Strength and Rigidity Are Not Exactly the Same Thing
A frame can be strong enough that it never cracks or permanently fails, yet still flex enough under load to affect the components inside it.
That distinction matters.
If a bearing seat moves, even slightly, the shaft it supports can move with it.
If the shaft moves, gear alignment can change.
If gear alignment changes, the contact between the gear teeth may no longer occur exactly as intended.
The result can be increased friction, roughness, noise and wear.
So for a heavy-duty jigging reel, the question is not simply:
Will the frame break?
A better question is:
Will the frame maintain the required alignment while the drivetrain is under load?
This becomes increasingly important as designers try to place powerful mechanical systems inside smaller housings.
Smaller Machines Leave Less Room for Error
A large reel gives the designer space.
Components can be separated more easily. Structural sections can be made thicker. Larger bearings and shafts can be accommodated without immediately creating a weight problem.
A compact reel is less forgiving.
Gear position, bearing location, shaft support and frame geometry all have to coexist inside a much smaller package.
This is where precision begins to matter as much as material strength.
A strong material machined inaccurately does not create an accurate machine.
A high-quality gear installed in a poorly aligned drivetrain cannot deliver its full potential.
A rigid frame with incorrectly positioned bearing seats is still a badly designed frame.
Modern reel engineering therefore depends increasingly on controlling the relationship between components:
Bearing position.
Shaft alignment.
Gear mesh.
Spool alignment.
Assembly tolerance.
The smaller and more highly loaded the machine becomes, the less useful it is to discuss these parts in isolation.
Manufacturing Technology Serves the Design
This is also where modern manufacturing methods become important.
Forging, precision machining, CNC machining, one-piece frames and other manufacturing approaches can all help designers create rigid structures and accurately locate critical components.
But the manufacturing method itself does not determine whether a reel is good.
CNC is not automatically better.
A beautifully machined aluminium frame can still contain poor engineering.
Likewise, a well-designed forged or cast structure can perform extremely well when the material, geometry and manufacturing process are appropriate for the intended load.
The correct relationship is:
Design determines what the structure needs to do. Manufacturing determines how accurately and efficiently that design can be produced.
That distinction is important.
The future of compact jigging reels is therefore not simply about using more aluminium, more CNC machining or more expensive materials.
It is about using each manufacturing method where it provides a genuine engineering advantage.
And this brings the development of the modern jigging reel back to where we started.
PE line reduced the space required to carry the necessary line capacity.
That gave designers the opportunity to make the reel smaller.
But once the machine became smaller, every millimetre of space, every gram of material and every critical alignment became more valuable.
Making a reel smaller is easy.
Making it smaller while preserving strength, rigidity, speed and reliability is not.
8. There Is a Limit to Miniaturisation
At this point, it would be easy to reach the wrong conclusion:
If better PE allows a smaller reel, then the smallest reel must be the best reel.
It is not.
Every reel still has physical requirements that cannot be designed away.
The spool must carry enough line.
The gears need sufficient size and support to transmit the required torque.
The drag needs enough working area to operate smoothly and manage heat.
The shafts and bearings need enough structural capacity.
The handle needs enough clearance and leverage to be practical under load.
And the frame needs enough material, in the right places, to maintain rigidity.
So miniaturisation eventually reaches a point where making the reel smaller begins to compromise the job it was designed to perform.
The engineering objective is therefore not:
Minimum size.
It is:
Optimum size for the intended task.
Spool Diameter Is a Good Example
Earlier, we discussed how thinner PE can reduce the spool volume required for a given line capacity.
But spool volume and spool diameter are not the same thing.
A designer may be able to fit the required amount of PE onto a very small spool, but that does not automatically make the smaller spool desirable.
Spool diameter directly affects line retrieve.
As line leaves the spool in deep water, the effective diameter becomes progressively smaller. The smaller the starting diameter, the more significant this can become.
Higher gearing can compensate for some of this loss, but higher gearing brings its own trade-off in cranking power.
So we return to the same system of compromises:
Smaller Spool → Smaller Reel → Lower Weight
but also potentially:
Smaller Spool → Lower Retrieve per Revolution → Higher Gear Requirement → Greater Cranking Demand
There is no free improvement.
Every design decision changes something else.
That is why a well-designed jigging reel is not a collection of maximum specifications.
It is a balance of interacting specifications.
9. Why This Argument Applies Particularly Well to Jigging
PE line has transformed almost every form of modern saltwater fishing, including popping, stickbaiting and tuna casting.
But the relationship between thinner PE and smaller reel size is especially clear in jigging.
The reason is simple:
Different fishing methods require different spool characteristics.
A large saltwater spinning reel used for GT popping has requirements beyond line capacity.
Casting performance matters.
Spool geometry matters.
Rapid line pickup matters.
A large spool diameter can therefore provide useful performance even when thinner PE means that the physical line capacity could fit onto something smaller.
So it would be incorrect to argue:
Better PE → every saltwater reel should become smaller.
That is not how reel design works.
Deep jigging presents a different set of priorities.
There is normally no requirement to cast a lure 100 metres.
The line is primarily being dropped vertically.
What matters more is carrying enough line for the intended depth, reducing the effect of current, maintaining useful retrieve speed, producing sufficient torque and drag, and keeping the complete tackle light enough for repetitive operation.
That makes deep jigging particularly well suited to compact reel architecture.
Once modern PE reduces the spool volume required for the job, much of the traditional reason for carrying a physically larger reel begins to disappear.
But only up to the point where reducing size starts to compromise another important function.
This is an important boundary to the argument.
Good engineering does not pursue small size for its own sake.
It removes size and weight only when they are no longer doing useful work.
10. The Real Evolution Is System Efficiency
If we look at modern jigging tackle only through specifications, the development can appear to be a collection of separate improvements.
PE line became thinner and stronger.
Reels became smaller and lighter.
Gear ratios became higher.
Drag numbers increased.
Gears and frames became stronger.
Manufacturing became more precise.
But these developments are not completely independent.
When one part of the system changes, it creates new possibilities—and new problems—for the other parts.
PE line is a good example.
As PE improved, the required line capacity could occupy less spool volume.
That created an opportunity to reduce spool and reel size.
A smaller reel reduced weight, which was particularly valuable for a fishing method based on hours of repetitive movement.
But a smaller spool also reduced line pickup.
Higher gear ratios helped recover that speed.
Higher gearing then increased the importance of cranking torque, handle leverage and drivetrain efficiency.
At the same time, the smaller frame still had to support the gears, shafts, bearings and drag under serious load.
So better materials, better structural design and greater manufacturing precision became increasingly valuable.
One improvement led to another requirement.
That is how a fishing system evolves.
The Goal Is Not More of Everything
There is a tendency in fishing tackle to judge progress through maximum numbers:
More drag.
More bearings.
Higher gear ratio.
More line capacity.
Larger gears.
But more is not always better.
A 30 kg drag system has little value if the intended fishing requires only a fraction of it and the additional structure adds unnecessary size or weight.
A huge spool is unnecessary if the required PE capacity fits comfortably on something smaller.
An extremely high gear ratio is not an advantage if it makes the reel unnecessarily difficult to crank under the intended load.
And removing another 50 grams is not progress if it reduces rigidity or durability.
A better question is:
How efficiently does the complete reel perform the job it was designed to do?
For deep jigging, that means finding the right balance between:
Line Capacity
Line Diameter
Spool Size
Retrieve Speed
Cranking Power
Drag Performance
Structural Rigidity
Weight
None of these should be maximised independently.
They need to work together.
Conclusion — How Much Reel Do We Really Need?
This brings us back to the original question.
The evolution of PE line did much more than give anglers a stronger fishing line.
By improving the relationship between strength and diameter, PE reduced the spool volume required to carry useful deep-water line capacity.
Its smaller diameter also reduced the influence of current on hundreds of metres of line, improving one of the most important aspects of deep jigging: control at depth.
Those changes gave reel designers the opportunity to build more compact machines.
But making the reel smaller created new engineering challenges.
A smaller spool still needed useful retrieve speed.
Higher gearing still needed adequate cranking power.
A compact drivetrain still needed strong gears and accurate support.
A lighter frame still needed to maintain alignment.
And a smaller reel still needed a drag system capable of controlling a large fish.
So the development did not simply move in one direction:
Smaller.
It moved toward something more useful:
Greater efficiency.
The modern jigging reel does not need to be the smallest reel possible.
It needs to be:
The smallest and lightest practical machine that can reliably carry the required line, deliver the required retrieve speed and drag, and survive the intended fishing load.
That is an important distinction.
Twenty or thirty years ago, carrying enough strong line could itself demand a larger reel.
Today, better PE gives designers more freedom.
The space saved by the line can become less spool, less frame and less weight—but only if engineering allows the remaining machine to do the same work reliably.
And perhaps that is the most interesting way to understand the evolution of modern jigging tackle:
The line became thinner.
The reel became more compact.
The fish did not become smaller.
The challenge for reel engineering is everything that happens in between.
RYVL Perspective
Modern PE has made it possible to build jigging reels that are smaller and lighter without giving up serious capability.
At RYVL, we believe this is where jigging reel design should continue to go:
More capability. Less size. Less weight.
RYVL. BUILT FOR THE NEXT CHALLENGE.