The great debate !!! My guess is that it's something that happens somewhere on this site, every year. At least it's happened every year since I've been a member, and it's always the same basic responses.
For the record, I'm right handed. I cast right handed with both spinning and casting gear. I reel with my left hand when using spinning gear, and my right hand when using casting gear.
I have tried using a left hand retrieve casting reel, not because I think it would allow me to be more efficient, more accurate, or start my retrieve earlier, but because my dad (he's right handed) uses all left hand retrieve reels, and I sometimes need to free a bait from a snag for him that he can't get to from his position in the boat. I've tried casting and reeling one in just for laughs, and I can't do it, nor would I want to learn to. Why? Because there are no advantages to it.
I can hear it now..... right handed anglers that use left hand retrieve reels are saying that not having to switch hands is an advantage, that switching hands is wasted motion. Well ..... you guys move your non casting hand to the reel handle, right? That's the same amount of motion I use to move the rod to my non casting hand. If there is any wasted motion in my way of doing it versus your way of doing it, it is in that I need to move my casting hand to the reel handle. So I need to move my casting hand 1" to the handle on the trade off. Wow !!!
You might say that since you don't have to switch hands, that if you want to, you can start your retrieve the instant your bait hits the water. So can I. Despite what some members may say about not switching hands before the bait has hit the water, I do it routinely, and I dare say that I, and others, have just as much control of where and how quietly the bait enters the water, as anyone that waits until the bait hits the water, to switch hands.
We're talking about low spool speeds as your bait approaches the water. I find it very easy to control the spool with my left thumb at low spool speeds. I do it routinely when I pitch, because when I pitch, I hold the rod in my left hand. Which brings us to the only advantage that a left hand retrieve reel would give a right handed person who pitches and flips with the rod in their right hand. Then, and only then would I say that switching hands can be a disadvantage. And even then, I'd offer that a right handed person who switches the rod to their left hand and reels with their right, has an advantage over a right handed person reeling with their left hand.
I know as a right handed person, that I can apply more power reeling with my right hand, than I can with my left.
I could easily go on with other real world advantages versus perceived disadvantages of switching hands after a cast, but it would all be for not. People are going to believe what they believe. If you as a right handed person, feel that using a left hand retrieve reel gives you advantage, that's fine. For you it may. But I and others can assure you that it doesn't for them.
The main difference between a right handed person that uses a right hand retrieve bait casting reel, and a right handed person that uses a left hand retrieve bait casting reel is that the right/right guy doesn't tell the right/left guy that he's doing it wrong. We're a live and let live kind of people ...... that is until someone tells us we're doing it wrong.
Oh and finally ....... for those that are trying to sell this whole thing about the right handed pros using right hand retrieve reels because that's what they grew up using thing?
Do you seriously think that a person that depends on fishing efficiently to make a living, wouldn't or couldn't switch the type of reel they use just because they grew up fishing a different kind of reel?
Come on man .......