Pick spincast while your line stays at 10 lb or under and you want push-button casting; switch to baitcast the moment you need a gear ratio above 5.1:1 or drag above 20 lb. In the 61 reels we read at 6 retailers on 2026-10-09, no spincast went above 5.1:1 and no baitcast started below 5.3:1, so gear ratio alone tells you which side of the line a reel sits on. The rest is budget and drag: spincast drag, where the retailer publishes it, runs 11 to 20 lb (4.99 to 9.07 kg); baitcast runs 9.9 to 28.7 lb (4.49 to 13.02 kg).
So the order is: decide the line weight first, then read the gear ratio, then read max drag, then weigh the reel in grams. Line weight sets which side you are on. Gear ratio confirms it. Drag is the number that most often goes unpublished, and it is the one that decides whether a reel can stop a fish in cover.
All of the numbers in the tables that follow came off a retailer product page we opened on 2026-10-09. Every row in the download carries its own source URL and capture date. Where a retailer does not publish a value, the cell is empty and this page says so rather than filling it in.
A spincast reel and a baitcast reel are not two answers to one question. A spincast reel holds the line in a closed nose cone and releases it with a button; a baitcast reel holds it on an open, exposed spool that you stop with your thumb. That difference is mechanical and you can feel it, but it is not a number, so it cannot be checked before you buy.
What can be checked is the spec block. We opened the product pages of 61 reels across 6 retailers on 2026-10-09 and recorded the model, the reel type, the gear ratio, the bearing count, the max drag, the line capacity, the weight and the price on every page that published them. That produced 17 spincast rows and 44 baitcast rows. The tables below are what came back.
Download the 61-row reel spec table (CSV)
Columns: retailer, brand, series, model, reel type, gear ratio, bearings, max drag (lb and kg), weight (oz and grams), mono line capacity (lb/yd and kg/m), braid line capacity (lb/yd and kg/m), price, a note column, the capture date and the source page URL.
A blank cell is a value the retailer never printed. We left it blank rather than guess, and we did not drop in a class average to fill the gap.
Every metric figure in the file was computed at build time from the imperial figure the retailer published. The multipliers below are exact by definition, not rounded, and they trace back to the 1959 international yard and pound agreement:
oz to g: multiply by 28.349523125lb to kg: multiply by 0.45359237yd to m: multiply by 0.9144Nothing is rounded until the final step: grams to one decimal, kilograms to two, and line capacity to whole metres.
Gear ratio is how many times the spool turns for each turn of the handle. It is the cleanest divider in the whole set, because the two groups do not overlap.
| Spincast (17 rows) | Baitcast (44 rows) | |
|---|---|---|
| Gear ratio span | 2.6:1 to 5.1:1 | 5.3:1 to 8.5:1 |
| Max drag, where published | 11 to 20 lb (4.99 to 9.07 kg) | 9.9 to 28.7 lb (4.49 to 13.02 kg) |
| Mono line capacity span | 4 to 20 lb (1.81 to 9.07 kg) | 8 to 16 lb (3.63 to 7.26 kg) |
| Weight span | 5.4 to 13.6 oz (153.1 to 385.6 g) | 5.6 to 11.5 oz (158.8 to 326.0 g) |
| Price span | $34.99 to $169.99 | $14.97 to $349.99 |
Source: the 61-row table shipped with this page, captured 2026-10-09. Drag is counted only on rows where the retailer published it: 4 of 17 spincast rows and 35 of 44 baitcast rows.
Read the first row. Every spincast in the set stops at 5.1:1; every baitcast starts at 5.3:1. If you want a fast retrieve for working a lure quickly, or for taking up slack before a hookset, that requirement alone puts you on the baitcast side. A 5.1:1 spincast turns the spool 5.1 times per handle turn; an 8.5:1 baitcast turns it 8.5 times. The spincast is not slow because it is badly made, it is slow because a push-button nose cone is built around a different job.
The second row is where the published data gets thin. Drag is the number that decides whether a reel can stop a fish in weeds, and it is the number retailers omit most often. That is the next section.
This is the clearest cross-check in the set, because one model is listed on two of the sites we opened at the same price.
| Daiwa Silvercast SC100B | daiwa.us | tacklewarehouse.com |
|---|---|---|
| Gear ratio | 4.3:1 | 4.3:1 |
| Bearings | 3BB | 3BB |
| Mono capacity | 10/80 | 10/80 |
| Weight | 9.2 oz = 260.8 g | 10.3 oz = 292.0 g |
| Price | $49.99 | $49.99 |
Source: daiwa.us product page "Silvercast" and tacklewarehouse.com product page "Daiwa Silvercast B Spincast Reels", both opened 2026-10-09. Both pages show $49.99.
The two pages agree on the gear ratio, the bearing count, the line capacity and the price. They disagree on the weight by 1.1 oz, which is 31.2 g. We did not pick one and quietly drop the other: both are in the table, each with its own source URL. If you are counting grams because you fish all day with a light rod, that 31-gram spread is the whole point of converting, and it is the reason a spec sheet on one retailer is not automatically the manufacturer figure.
This is the field that decides a spincast against a baitcast for cover fishing, and it is the field that is missing most often. Counted across the rows we captured:
| Retailer | Rows read | Reel types listed | Rows publishing max drag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daiwa US | 16 | Baitcast + Spincast | 13 of 16 |
| Dick's Sporting Goods | 9 | Baitcast + Spincast | 0 of 9 |
| Discount Tackle | 20 | Baitcast | 20 of 20 |
| KastKing | 3 | Baitcast + Spincast | 3 of 3 |
| Tackle Warehouse | 8 | Baitcast + Spincast | 0 of 8 |
| Zebco | 5 | Spincast | 3 of 5 |
Source: the shipped table, captured 2026-10-09. "Rows publishing max drag" counts only rows where the value appears on the page we opened.
Two patterns fall out of that table. Discount Tackle and Daiwa US publish max drag on every reel row we read from them, while Tackle Warehouse and Dick's Sporting Goods publish it on none. And the split is not random by reel type: drag appears on 35 of 44 baitcast rows but only 4 of 17 spincast rows, because the budget spincast lines simply do not print it. If you are comparing a spincast against a baitcast and the spincast page has no drag figure, that is not a page error, it is the retailer declining to give you the number.
Below are the two ladders worth carrying to the shelf, computed rather than eyeballed.
| Reel weight, oz | Metric | oz x 28.349523125 |
|---|---|---|
| 5.0 oz | 141.7 g | 141.748 |
| 5.5 oz | 155.9 g | 155.922 |
| 6.0 oz | 170.1 g | 170.097 |
| 6.5 oz | 184.3 g | 184.272 |
| 7.0 oz | 198.4 g | 198.447 |
| 7.5 oz | 212.6 g | 212.621 |
| 8.0 oz | 226.8 g | 226.796 |
| 8.5 oz | 241.0 g | 240.971 |
| 9.0 oz | 255.1 g | 255.146 |
| 9.5 oz | 269.3 g | 269.32 |
| 10.0 oz | 283.5 g | 283.495 |
| 11.0 oz | 311.8 g | 311.845 |
| 12.0 oz | 340.2 g | 340.194 |
| 13.0 oz | 368.5 g | 368.544 |
| 14.0 oz | 396.9 g | 396.893 |
| Line / drag, lb | Metric |
|---|---|
| 4 lb | 1.81 kg |
| 6 lb | 2.72 kg |
| 8 lb | 3.63 kg |
| 10 lb | 4.54 kg |
| 12 lb | 5.44 kg |
| 14 lb | 6.35 kg |
| 15 lb | 6.8 kg |
| 16 lb | 7.26 kg |
| 20 lb | 9.07 kg |
| 25 lb | 11.34 kg |
| 30 lb | 13.61 kg |
The multipliers are fixed, not rounded. The third column of the weight table gives the raw product, so you can verify the arithmetic yourself.
Two things in the table are worth flagging rather than smoothing over:
It cannot tell you which reel feels better in your hand, and it cannot tell you which one catches more fish. Gear ratio, drag and capacity are figures the retailers published, not measurements we took. Every price is the number the page showed us on 2026-10-09, and prices move without notice. Two of the retailers are thinner than the rest: Tackle Warehouse prints a full spec table but never a max drag, and Dick's Sporting Goods prints a gear ratio and a price and nothing else. Both are recorded as they are rather than filled in.
If the reel you are shopping for is missing from the table, that is because we never opened its product page. Give us the link and we will add the row, dated.
Baitcast and spincast are not two grades of the same reel. In the 61 reels we read at 6 retailers, gear ratio draws a clean line at 5.1:1: spincast sits from 2.6:1 to 5.1:1, baitcast from 5.3:1 to 8.5:1. So read your line weight, then your gear ratio, then max drag, then the weight in grams, and the choice makes itself. The only reason this is hard is that the drag figure is missing from 13 of the 17 spincast rows, and a missing number is easy to fill in with a guess. Do not.