bulldog1935

$500 reel and $300 reel - the former has worm-gear ball bearings v. bushings. You definitely get a spool improvement on the $300 step. @Koz I dig my Lew's Super Duty's, but these reels will get you down to distance-casting 1/16 oz, while the SV brake will let you cast well over 1 oz with the same reel (and without any adjustment).

You may not be able to fish lighter line. Zebco line is thicker than most mono by definition. (Also Abu Bonnyl for Abu spincast) Thinner line may not release from the rotor line pin to cast. (you'd be SOL after all that effort)

A tip for dealing with JDM tackle | Another Spin on Glass | Fiberglass Flyrodders The answer is in your phone. Load up the Google Translate app. Start the app, pick the camera icon, and point the phone at the document. The app will produce a real time 'translation' of the text (see the image on the left). The translation won't be perfect (see the image on the right). Quite likely the translation will change as the phone moves. Still even the most puzzling text gives a better meaning than no translation at all. Using the scan option may give a more coherent translation. Aiming the phone at smaller sections of text gives better results also.

If you want to understand where I'm coming from, here's the primer I wrote on backlash and casting brakes: Adding, here's Jun Sonada's article on braking systems with descriptions of brake types, brake curves, and a table comparing which brake type works best where. Brake systems of casting reels (japantackle.com)

I had already figured out I wanted linear mag brake for best distance and wind control with light lures in my salt small game niche - 3-g plug, and I was making repeatable 120' casts. The longest-casting spool I have just for the salt UL rig is Roro-X, which weighs 5.5 g, titanium spindle, and fixed rotor in place of the SV complication. The Ray's SV spool (left) weighs 9.2 g and lets you widen your lure weight range for bass tackle with non-linear SV moving rotor for start-up backlash with big weight. Having been through the exercise and greatly exceeding my target capability, I believe you're being obstinate with brand loyalty. These are the first Daiwa reels I've bought since they wouldn't support parts on my 7-y-o Millionaire 6H in 1984. I went with larger 34-mm diameter spool, 1000-size reels, to get the obvious distance you gain with slightly less rotational speed. The smaller-diameter-spool BFS reels are really intended for stream trout fishing. I'll also give some credit to Jun Sonada at Japan Tackle, who lists all the aftermarket spools for all brands, and declares the Roro-X as the only capable of casting 2 g (be sure Jun's done it). He also provides this nice brake curve, which demonstrates that SV provides comparable start-up protection to centrifugal brake, and when the SV relaxes to linear mag, extends cast distance over centrifugal. (this is basically the same thing tournament casters do when they're manually adjusting their mag brake mid-cast)

I'm from Academy country - the first store was army surplus at IH-35 and 45th under the Austin elevated highway. Every Academy here at least has qualified reel technicians working behind the counter, and I would definitely tell them this reel arrived with a problem. If it's short a drag washer, they may be able to fix it while you wait, or give you a warranty exchange. The reel is spec'd for 15-lb drag, which is 3 times as much as anyone should ever need.

Finally made it to this thread, and have a few posts queued up to give some likes - I ran out of those today. This year, I put together a couple of Daiwa SV reels using Ray's Studio BFS SV spools that will out-cast any spinning reels. Proved it on both 8' small game and 6'7" BFS bass rod against comparable 8' small game spinning, Shimano C2000 and same diameter braid. First off, the modified SV reels will cast 2 g farther than the spinning tackle will cast 2 g (rated for 1 g). Taking them fishing with 3 g, the BFS SV reels gave both greater distance, much improved accuracy and repeatable casts over spinning - to the point of daring long casts deeper into the edge of the grass. (People are going to jump in with their personal spinning skills, but mine go back 50 years) Yes, this spool is shallow, but it will hold 90 m of PE#1.2, which is 27-lb test in X-braid. I'll add this about the SV casting brake - once you set the mag to eliminate wind backlash with the lightest thing you're going to throw, the moving rotor SV complication does the rest on all the heavy stuff you're going to throw. @ABrugs At least for BFS = bait finesse system. Since the Japanese coined it, they pretty much to get to call what it means. They make BFS rods for stream trout fishing, bass fishing, shore fishing and even offshore fishing. Japanese tackle that gets imported to the US by the US affiliate companies is most always bass fishing, most always high gear ratios, and only about 1/3 of the number of models offered to JDM (throw in inshore and large offshore sizes). https://www.jpfishingtacklenews.com/shimano-stradic-19/ Thirteen JDM '19 Stradic models, v. five USM Stradic FL models.

I guess this thing isn't on. You won't get the same result. Here's a mid-depth spool that gets awesome line management with 10-lb Tatsu, but comes up a bit short with backing and finesse braid over the top. It will fish, but it's not this (300 yds 35-lb braid on a surf reel) a lot of people are going to say, yes, it works just fine for me. The same people will elsewhere complain about line twist and line dig.

Most Shimano reels come with them, especially in small sizes. Daiwa Luvias comes with great shallow braid spools. Both also sell aftermarket shallow braid spools for their reels to swap with the deeper spools that came on them. The 1520 spool here for 4000/5000 Shimano is PE#1.5 200 m The S-28 denotes it fits large frame Shimano post-'18 Stella. With the right spool number (stroke) you can find matching spools for older Shimano - here's the catalog page with S-numbers for Shimano models and sizes. All reel models with the same S-number will swap spools. You can find Yumeya, SLP Works and OEM spools from many Japan vendors, especially Plat and Hedgehog. I don't have any Daiwa references, but you'll find their spools at those vendors also.

IMO, they don't compare to Shimano - not even Daiwa has light-braid line management like Shimano. IRT are definitely benchmade cool, over-built, and offer that nifty reversed foot. If you're planning on fishing mono/fluoro or heavy braid, you'll find IRT acceptable. Being fully sealed, IRT also have wind inertia that you won't find in Shimano. Shimano's labyrinth seals sling water away from the mechanism. IRT's seals let you dunk the reel and keep the mechanism dry. They also support all reel maintenance for life.

My buddy as gone over the cliff for IRT spinning reels. They also rep very nice NS Black Hole rods (Korea) and offer as combos. If you want a really nice IM6 rod from US-rolled blank, it's Crowder E-series Lite, and of course St. Croix and Lami mid-grades and up are US-made. If you have a spot for a compact lever drag or star-drag NLW reel, Seigler quality is tops. This is SGN - people with educated thumbs cast them with only the lever drag for brake.

Guess I'm funny about not being fond of the mid-size - only have one, a Tica that's a salty ML loaner. My go-to reels are Stradics and a Vanquish. I dig 4000-5000 reels for inshore and near offshore (more Tica loaners) Like Daiwa, Tica 3000 is Shimano 5000. My favorite spinning spot is 1000-2000 (yes, that Tica 1500 gets loaned, but sometimes I'm stingy with it...), and the 500 size are just plain fun

and I thought you were showing us the bait - silly me.

@KP Duty yeah, I was just pricing those spools - they cost a whole reel

pretty sure they use bass for bait to catch muskie

If the price isn't out of line, you intend to do any bank fishing with it, and 7'6" is not too long, I would snag the 762LT NS Black Hole Rockfish Really nice wide lure weight range, 1/64 to 1/4 oz, designed to protect 3-lb test, and to turn big fish. 81 g is extremely light in hand. (The lighter ST rod would probably be weird for you with anything but UL fishing) NS Black Hole quality way exceeds their price, because they're trying to enter the Japan market from Korea.

My experience, Lew's centrifugal brake is choice on heavy lures, and hugely reliable on all lure weights, but costs distance with lighter weights. It still surprises me that the clean spool and simple linear mag brake on Lew's Super Duty has better distance and wind control than most reels, and excels at both with weights down to 1/8-oz. @JimT I will add I have Air-HD bearings in the Super Duty, and had similar bearings in Tournament Pro and SP. What really surprised me was that Super Duty out-distanced lighter-spool SP with 1/8 oz and both with the same bearings. I didn't believe the result at first, and kept reducing centrifugal brake setting until I finally got start-up backlash with 1/8 oz (tough to do - you really have to try). The rod I was using on Super Duty was only rated down to 1/4 oz., vs. 1/8 oz fast ML rod I was trying with both TP and SP.

sorry guys, this particular reel isn't exactly my bailiwick. (ask me about any vintage fly reel - hobby business bread and butter for me) But you can always use advanced search on ebay to check prices only on Sold listings, which I did for you in the link. As Cap'n Phil noted, expect price to vary with condition.

still, this is supposed to be a dream thread with dream budget. I will throw in one more for me, the JDM Steez LTD SV TW. Though I still don't like the color, underneath it's improved.

Another reason to use good manual bail technique. Feather the end of your cast with fingertips, close the bail manually, turn with the rod and take up any slack before retrieving. This is going to take care of wind knots, braid twist, line dig and just about all the standard braid complaints. You can use really fine braid on really big fish this way. Also helps to have a braid-specific shallow spool. Also important to load your braid under tension - I run all my lines through a phone book with a weight on top to adjust tension.

Heddon 4-15 or 4-18, and Redifor Beetzsel both are holy grail collectibles, and two I'm missing from LW patents that competed with Marhoff before 1928. (in fly reels, it would be 1936 C-spring Hardy Lightweight) Like many here, have enough of my dream reels, some with spool options, and am wondering why others on this thread aim so low. If you feel like taking your Zillion apart, you can replace the worm shaft bushings with BB (2x 740zz plus these shim washers).

Asian Portal has many nice bass spinning rods in stock, including Shimano, Daiwa, Megabass, Major Craft Though note their current rod stock is a preponderance of UL The Megabass Levante F3-611LVS 2-pc looks interesting. If you go down the brands one at a time, can find what else they have - look for the yellow stock tags.

St. Croix Legend Glass spinner has just the right action for my dog-walking plugs and wakebaits.

I just wouldn't let the guy with the Martini know if my opinion was adverse. Remember all those guys trying to get away from Quigley?

It should be obvious the statement is true for Everybody. Something that has always floored me in the sport is the brand loyalty above all reason. Nobody is going to pick their tackle because of color. They're going to pick their tackle because of budget and features. Within a range of budget and features, color then might become a preference between two brands, and that's what the makers are banking on - it's not because people are faddish - the fad is from the makers. In the case of aftermarket upgrades/changes. People may not like the handles, spools, star drags that come on their reels (a number of people complain about Daiwa's spool tension knob). Buying those parts puts them in a world of trim and color anodize tech that can add a man-jewelry factor to their tackle. But they made the choice because of function. Very few things are really that new in this old sport.