Anyone do any deep drop fishing? With grouper season opening, I be been jealous of my buddies winching up snowy grouper, Warsaw, and both kinds of tile fish. I don't have the $$$ for an electric reel so last year I tried a big spinner with braid (penn battle II 8000). It had too high to a retrieve ratio, so it barely had the torque to bring up a 2lb ball sinker from 600 feet. I've had a Senator 9/0 mounted on a Daiwa Dendoh bent butt rod for a while, but I don't want to spool a reel with that weak of drag with $100 of braid.
Today, I found a Daiwa Sealine SLD30 2 speed, aluminum frame loaded with hollow core braid on eBay for a song. It's going on the Dendoh. I took the second half of next week off and I plan on dropping it every day in about 400-800 feet. I have a chicken rig made up already, and I have about 40 more feet of 200# mono to make a few more. Just need sinkers and bait.
So what do you drop for? Swords? Cod/pollock/haddock? Halibut? Show me your fish winch!