Michigan Muskie Alliance

If your system is correct, mostly related to the leangth of your rod and the quality of your drag washers, you should never need to thumb your spool.

The only exception I've experienced was when fishing a huge bloom and the water looked like pea soup. A decent musky about jumped into the boat as I pulled out of my 8 and was going into the next cast. Then, as fast as I could, I thumbed the spool, let out line while I did a figure 8 over my head and slammed the bucktail back into the water about 15' from the boat. Never underestimate Buchertail 700s.

Listen to Will, the new technology definitely overshadows the need for thumbing your spool....9 foot rods, super lines and the new reels makes a huge difference.

I fished with a guy a few times that was a huge fan of the thumbing technique on the 8. He voiced his opinion to me all the time about how I should get in the habit, blah, blah, blah. Not too long after one of his opinionated lectures to me, a huge musky hit his bucktail at boatside, his thumb slipped off the spool, spun it, huge birdnest which resulted in the musky breaking the 80 lb line. Sad day for the fish, which probably died seeing the way it was hooked, but the guy never has lectured me again....
I keep my drag so the fish can pull it out if they need to and have no problem getting a hookset.

Rod

I do thumb mine all the time for a different reason involving cold weather and the failure of the anti-reverse roller which caused me to miss a nice fish. For those wondering if the roller doesnt engage on the type of reel I use it wont actuate the drag and the whole spool goes free... it was not cool.

Um, fix or replace the reel?