Zebco SLDL

A friend of mine had one of the Zebco Slab Seeker SLDL reels. This reel kept birdnesting up on him. After hours of pulling it apart and comparing to other Zebco closed faced reels we realized the problem.

The Zebco SLDL is meant to be a specific depth jigging reel. He had been casting with it and trying to tight line. The reel is unique in that it has no backspin lock. You simply set the line at the depth you want and mark it with the depth lever. From that point on it will only go back to that depth. The curious thing is that no matter which direction you turn the handle, the line retracts into the reel.