Reel Fill Calculator

[GLF]

Ever wonder how much backing you can put on your reel along with your lead core or copper?

This is an excel spread sheet that will calculate how much of the various lines will fit on your reel. It was created by Eric Lang who goes by the username Arbogaster here. You have to have excel in order to use it.

There are directions on how to use this on the spread sheet, and I am going to walk you through it also.

Step one

The first thing you need to do is to is to enter the line capacity for you reel in the Advertised Reel Data box. It is important that you use the Big Game dimensions for this first box. I have a reel in front of me that says it will hold 430 yds of 25lb line. In the line spec table it shows berk. big game 25 = 0.019.

In the Line Capacity in Yds box I am going to enter 430.

In the Diameter of line in inches box I am going to enter 0.019.

This shows the Calculated Reel Volume Capacity = 4.389 Cubic Inches.

Step two

Enter the diameters of the lines you wish to use on your reel in the Proposed Line Data box. I am going to use 30lb power pro for backing, 27lb lead core, and a 20lb leader.

Enter the diameters in the boxes.

Backing 0.011

Core 0.032

Leader 0.018

Step three

Enter the length of the propsed lines you wish to place on the reel. I am going to use 300 yds of backing, 100 yds or core, and 25 yds of leader.

Enter these lengths in the boxes.

Backing 300

Core 100

Leader 25

This shows the reel is 94.6% full.

Play around with different line combinations and see what you come up with.

reel_fill_calculator.zip

[Rayman96]

....This a very useful application to have.

....I've seen this somewhere before and will add it when I can, as the other version did not require excel, if memory serves me correctly.

....This helps especially when you only have one reel of a certain make and size!

[arbogaster]

I've tested this on a couple of reels guys and it works really well. It's nice to be able to look at your options and not have to guess what will fit. Ohh and Mike . . . The last name is Lang. But most of the guys who know me as arbogaster know that. Have a great weekend guys. Stay warm

[GLF]

I've tested this on a couple of reels guys and it works really well. It's nice to be able to look at your options and not have to guess what will fit. Ohh and Mike . . . The last name is Lang. But most of the guys who know me as arbogaster know that. Have a great weekend guys. Stay warm

Sorry about the mis spelling of your last name. My sons teacher's last name is Lane, and I no brained it. I corrected it in the first post.

Thanks for putting this together for everyone!

[KJ pluggin]

Very helpful tool thanks. I did get hung up for a while when I was doing calcs for a 300 copper. I kept putting in 300 for the copper instead of 100, I forgot to make the conversion from feet to yards. I felt pretty stupid afterwords.

[arbogaster]

Yeah you gotta watch the yards / feet thing, I did that very thing once calculating copper and I wrote the darn spreadsheet. It should become second nature once you use it a few times. I tried to make it as simple as possible. Enjoy it guys and let me know if you have any questions. Mike was gracious enough to put it up here for all to use. Hope it keeps the cabin fever away for a few more months.

[GLF]

Mike was gracious enough to put it up here for all to use.

You did all the work putting it together.

[Rayman96]

I tried to make it as simple as possible.................Hope it keeps the cabin fever away for a few more months.

[anonymous]

Excellent starting point information, no more guessing on how much backing will fit then tearing everythig apart and starting over, not that I have ever had to do that.

[Line Dancin]

just tried it on a couple different reels i have here with different lines and WAY COOL. i could actually squeeze a little more on and would have been able to see this before assembly and cutting. thanks

[Habeeb]

Hi fellas, first off, great spreadsheet! I've been using this for awhile now. However, it hasn't worked for me the last couple days. It opens up but I am unable to put any calculations in. Is anyone else having this problem or is it user error (me)?

[KJ pluggin]

I just tried it and did not have a problem. Do you have it saved to your computer? If you don't give that a try.

[Habeeb]

Ok, thanks for the response KJ. Figured it was user error. I'll try again later when I get home.

[cduced]

arbogaster, Thanks very much for putting this together. I used it to put together a couple of copper reels. In my case, I think it over estimated the amount of line slightly. I was only able to fit about 90% capacity. Maybe because of the larger diameter of the copper throws it off a bit? Could also be the line counter I used - a Shakespeare that I never bothered to calibrate.

Also, it works fine with OpenOffice/LibreOffice and Google Docs. -- Bud

[arbogaster]

Yeah it is not an exact science but it will usually get you pretty close. One thing you cannot do is use the line counter to measure the feet of line as you put it on. When the spool is less than full the line counter measure is off. This isn't a problem when the spool is most of the way full but when you are first filling it; the count is way off. I either use line lengths in my recipe that I can buy i.e. 300 yds of power pro or 150 yds of power pro, or I'll drag the line out in my back yard and unspool it in the grass and measure out the length i need.

I'm glad it has caught on and you guys are getting some use out of it. I put some time in developing and testing it. Glad to see it has worked well for most everyone.

Think Spring guys!

[ironman]

Eric,

Just wanted to thank you for developing and sharing this with us! Extremely usefull tool.

Matt

[arbogaster]

I's been a while but I thought I would check in on you guys. Glad to see people are getting some use out of the spreadsheet. I'll be up fishing this weekend Sept 9-12 hope to see some of you out there. Give Arbogaster a call on 68

[Blaze]

Just wanted to say " Thank you" to Arbogaster for the reel fill calculator.

[bloodrun]

Hey everyone, we have updated our Reel Fill charts for all of our coppers (32lb, 45lb, 60lb) and our Copper Backing Line. We made a few changes on previous numbers to make them more accurate, as well as adding reel fill data for the Daiwa Seagates and Penn Squalls. These figures should get you real close when spooling up. Figure on 30' of leader..

We will be doing performance reviews for both of those reels in the coming weeks and will post results.

http://www.bloodruntackle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/CopperDiveChart.pdf

http://www.bloodruntackle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/BloodRunWalleyeCopperDiveChartDepthCurve.pdf

[george73]

Is the calculator link still active?    I cant seem to download it. 

 

 

[shu9265]

I did a search on Blood run site and came up with this

https://bloodruntackle.com/pros-tips/

Says you will need to sign up, but there sure is a bunch of good info to be had there

Edited April 7, 2020 by shu9265

[ICEFISH]

This is why I signed up at this site and glad I did, lots of helpful people here, thanks for putting this calculator up, God bless your appetite! 

[Ken Rodenhouse]

Something is wrong in the first box. Using the capacity for an Okuma 45 in #test and yards of 20/580, 25/430, 30/330 and your and line on the spreadsheet, I come up with reel capacities of 5.313, 4.8, 4.5 respectively. Sorry to be a potential spoiler 

[jdh]

17 hours ago, Ken Rodenhouse said:

Something is wrong in the first box. Using the capacity for an Okuma 45 in #test and yards of 20/580, 25/430, 30/330 and your and line on the spreadsheet, I come up with reel capacities of 5.313, 4.8, 4.5 respectively. Sorry to be a potential spoiler 

Here are the numbers for the Okuma.  580/20 (0.42mm), 430/25 (0.48mm), 330/30 (0.55mm)  Notice they us a mm line size for the numbers also.  Convert those to inches an plug them into box 1.  0.42 mm = 0.0165 in, 0.48 mm = 0.0189 in, and 0.55 mm = 0.0217 inches. Results in calculated reel volumes of 4.465 in3, 4.343 in3, and 4.394 in3.  These are much closer to each other.  I'd assume that you have approximately 4.4 cubic inches to work with. Also, see if you can find the line diameter of the exact type of line that you're using when plugging in the data. In general for coppers and leadcore, I've found that the 45's work well for up to 200 coppers and up to a 7 color leadcore.  For more than that I prefer the 55's.

[Ken Rodenhouse]

Your answer addresses the situation perfectly. I've updated my copy of the line spec table. Thank you.