Gen 3 Winch Review

[barroncooper]

just picked up my gen 3 winch and had to take it for a test drive. the first thing that i noticed was the weight, or lack there of. the new model is considerably lighter than last years model.

ergonomics: the 3 sits very low on the reel seat and is very palmable and comfortable. One complaint is that the newer gear box is much lower and larger and my palming hand fingers feel funny against it. this isn't even really a complaint as I'm certain that with time, I'll become as comfortable with it as I am my other reels. The over sized eva knobs are nice too; however, I do find them a little thick. I think I'm going to attempt to reshape them to get rid of some of the blockish feel. over all they provide great grip and are fairly comfortable to hold.

Castability: Mind you, this is a brand new out of box reel that I'm sure will improve with a flush and re lube. with that being said, out of the box it's the best casting reel that I've ever experienced. the new dual breaking system is superior to anything that I have experience with. and that's a lot coming from a die hard shimano fan. I found the best break setting to be 2 centrifugal weights out and about 25% on the magnetic. remarkably, when changing to say a much lighter square bill, I found that just a little bit more mag brake was all that was required to make long manageable casts. this thing absolutely hurls big cranks and I'm sure that much of that is attributable to the rod but long hard casts are worry free once dialed in and this instills a lot of confidence for me when fishing deep divers. I want to make huge casts with dd22's and the last thing I want to worry about is bird nesting and that is simply not a problem with the new model.

retrieve: out of the box with no line I thought that the gen 3 was not as smooth as the older model. I don't know yet if the gen 3 has all brass gears but abu advertises a new d2 dura gear set for the gen 3. the newer gear set has to be lighter and I guess the trade off is thelighter weight aginst the smoothness of the older gear material. I'm not saying that the gen 3 is not smooth, its just not buttery like the older model. another possibility thats attributal to this is the over all weight reduction of the reel could give it the hollow feel that it has. on a positive note, once I filled it up with line, some of the hollow feel went away. At 22" per turn, I found the gen 3 to have the perfect retrieve for deep divers, a-rigs, big swim baits, and big slow rolling spinners. the reel has gobs of torque available mostly due to the oversized handle on the reel. again I'm sure that with a clean and relube and some break in time, the reel will become as buttery smooth as the older model. Although I haven't had the opportunity to test the drag on a large fish, I found the drag to be sufficient and smooth, Im assuming that this is a dry drag stack and for a dry drag stack it feels relly smooth with good start up..

Overall: I do think that this is the best cranking reel offered to date. I have curado e5's, chronarch e5's, Pro-q crankers and calcuttas and I think this reel outshines them all when you look at the overall performance. Only time will tell if the gen3 winch will hold up and by all means I hope it does because I think that Abu has a winner with this reel. My only real complaint is that the palm side side plate does not swivel like a shimano. If one were not careful, I suspect it would be easy to drop the plate in the water, however, once the reel is dialed in, I don't see much of a reason to remove it as minute adjustments can be made with the mag control.

I hope you've enjoyed my initial review. I'd like to put it through the ringer and get back to everyone whose interested in more detailed review.

Tight lines every body, colt manning

[Long Mike]

Very nice review. Thank you!

[jj'sbassinforfun]

After reading this that dang monkey is chewing on my ear now! Saying "buy it buy it". I was going to wait until after xmas to get mine, But probably gonna be real soon now! Geez!

Seriously, Thanks for the review!

[LuckyHandsINC.]

Where did you get it? I thought they weren't coming out till December.

[jj'sbassinforfun]

I have been looking for the length on the handle, Could you give approx of center to center on the knobs?

Thanks

[barroncooper]

lucky, I got mine at the local tackle store here in Louisiana. Bass pro in shreveport said they wont have them for a few weeks. JJ the handle lenght from center of the knob to the other is exactly 3 and 3/4 inches. I took it out to abuse it with deep cranks today and I swear it gets better with each cast. I was right, some break in time has done it well. I still have not flushed and re lubed the bearings yet. I haven't hooked any huge bass yet but I foul hooked a 4 and a half foot at least gar today and the drag performed flawlessly. very smooth!!! I fought it for a good 20 minutes. I have the reel on the veritas winch model in 7'6" MH and this fish was about all it could handle. I got the gar right up to the boat and snapped the line. I'd say the gar was 60 pounds or so. which by the way i have it spooled up with 16 pound sunline supernatural and this mono kicks ****!!! the whole combo is just a joy to fish with. I did a lot of backing off and tightening on the drag and like i said it was flawless. cool fish! wish i couldve landed it!

[jj'sbassinforfun]

3 and 3/4 works out to about 95mm. Thanks!