Vintage Penn 209 for rockfish?

Glad you found one. Crazy what people are asking for them these days. The lefties were always a little harder to find but not $150 hard to find. Enjoy it!

Tinkering with these old Penn reels is a little addicting, haha.

I bought that 209 a while back, and fished it couple times.  While it worked, it didn't give me quite what I was looking for. Just a kinda awkward reel, dimensions wise. The ratio felt ok, but the shortish handle compared with the relatively large spool was a little strange. I can see why this one isn't really a favorite among the Penn crowd.

So, I got brave and did a little surgery.  I had a Penn 180 Baymaster that a neighbor gave me a while ago, but it was right handed.  I stole the guts from the 209, shaved a little off the inside of the side plate for the anti-reverse dog to go opposite direction, and voila! A left handed 180 Baymaster!  Took me a couple tries to get it perfect, but it works very well.  I used the longer handle and larger drag star from the 209 also - but I might swap in a handle just a smidge longer; gonna have to fish it a little bit first.

I spooled it up with about 200ish yards of 40lb braid, and put it on my 8' medium light Ugly Stik - this is gonna serve duty as my live bait rig.  New HT100 drag washers make plenty of buttery smooth drag, in a nice compact package.  Pretty stoked I got it all to work! 

Sweet reel. Good to know that’s an option for a lefty conversion

So, I got brave and did a little surgery.  ...

This is very cool! Let us know how it works out in practice.

Thanks guys!

If all goes according to plan, I should be able to give it a go on Tuesday.

Thanks for the pics guys! Those are some sweet setups! Lots of custom stuff out there for these old reels, some good upgrades to make them more capable. I will probably be looking at stainless sleeves, carbon drags, and maybe alloy spools for the ones I plan to use.

Waiting on the 209, should be here late this week. eBay pics looked pretty good, not collector quality but certainly plenty of life left.  Should make a good troller once I get it cleaned up a bit. Wasn't really my first choice, but it was a lefty available on eBay for a good price, so I jumped on it.

Hoping to find a decent lefty jigmaster, but I'm patient. Will jump on the first one I find, don't want to spend more than about $50-60 on one.

I don't know if you found what you were looking for but here are a couple of people who have older reels:  Randy Pauly on Alan Tani's website: https://alantani.com/index.php/board,70.0.html?
=PHPSESSID=quopu1m0g04p0a83pmjc540prk

And Berinson Tackle: https://berinsontackle.com/  both have good collections of reels of various makes.  I bought a really good condition early Penn 113 from Randy, and I have bought from Berinson as well.  Both are good to go!

Holy crap, a left-handed!! That’s the equivalent of a white whale

Holy crap, a left-handed!! That’s the equivalent of a white whale

Ha! Yeah, took me a year to find a clean left handed Jigmaster.  Only fished it twice last summer , but she fishes really nice!  Have it on a medium 7' Ugly Stik Tiger with 30lb mono. Looking forward to rockfish opening again to get some more time with it.

My little Baymaster lefty conversion is a great reel too - super happy with that one! Perfect match for the 8' medium light Ugly Stik Tiger for saltwater trolling or live bait drifting.