As much as we don't care as long as it works. Sometimes you wonder why one reel works so much better with one type of line and gives you nothing but frustration with another. I'm mainly referring to the difference when spooled with monofilament or a superline of braid or fused polyethylene. There are some influences in how many line wraps around your spinning reel spool that can determine whether a particular reel will be able to pack the line in more evenly or it will be lopsided or saddle in the middle.
To determine how many line wraps goes around your spool take a look at the manufacture gear ratio. One turn of the handle will make the rotor spin the same amount of times as the gear ratio. As example the Shimano Stradic FH 1000 has a gear ratio of 6.0 to 1 and the Shimano Symetre FI 750 has gear ratio of 4.7 to 1. Now all you have to do is look carefully at the spool oscillation to determine how many handle crank revolution does it take to make one complete oscillation. For the Shimano Stradic FH 1000 it takes approximately 2.7 handle cranks for one complete oscillation and for the Symetre 750 it takes approximately 3.0 handle cranks for one complete oscillation.
Now we do a little math of taking the handle crank revolutions and multiplying that by the gear ratio to get the approximate line wraps on the spool.
Stradic: 6.0 X 2.7 = 16.2
Symetre: 4.7 X 3.0 = 14.1
So with these numbers we determine that for the Stradic the line will wrap on the spool approximately 8 wraps up and 8 wraps down. For the Symetre the line will wrap around the spool for approximately 7 wraps up and 7 wraps down. These high wrap counts are pretty good.
If you're looking at the next reel you plan on purchasing, keep this in mind and it will help to determine if one particular reel is going do better for super lines or not. I had an old reel. 4.3 gear and handle crank per complete spool oscillation is about 2. That gives me an approximate line wrap of 8.6. Aproximately 4 line wraps up and 4 line wraps down. I put Fireline 10# and got lots of line dig in. It was so bad, I was about to give up on Fireline and call it a gimmick. I didn't and started on the road to try it on different reels until I stumbled on something that complimented Fireline and allowed it to perform. Just happened to be a Shimano Stradic at that time.
However all of this can also be applied to these small ice fishing reels the same way. Especially when we want to use smaller diameter lines and fighting line freeze also on the spool. Many ultralight reels have short stroke spools also so they can work just as well with less line wrap count.
The following are spool length/width comparisons:
Spool series --- spool width - spool base - spool lip
Stradic 1000FH - 13 mm -- 40 mm -- 38 mm
Stradic 1000FI - 12.5 mm -- 40 mm -- 40 mm
Symetre 750FI – 11.5 mm -- 40 mm -- 36 mm
Symetre 500FJ – 9.5 mm -- 38 mm -- 38 mm
Good luck and happy fishing...
