Got My First Daiwa Baitcaster

[thehooligan]

Ive been looking for a while and finally found a pretty good deal on an alphas 103 type F. Ive only owned one daiwa before, a fuego spinning reel so i know they make a really good reel. How does this reel compare to a core 51 in quality and in throwing light baits ?

 

I see it has the magnetic brake which im not used to, do you guys think its easier to use compared to the shimano brakes ?  Im excited to spool this up with my new supercast line 

 

I got this model, id love to get it painted the purple color. I think ill add the abec 7's and levelwind bearing. I did the spool bearings in my 3 shimano bc reels, is it easier/same to do in the daiwa reels ?

 

 

 

[Quitlimpin]

Nice score! You're gonna love that reel.

I find the alphas and the cores to be quite comparable in throwing light baits. Seems that the alphas takes a little less effort but a little more thumb.

It's a fun little reel to pimp. First thing I would do is change the drags to carbontex---it's a very noticeable upgrade in smoothness. The bearings are just as easy to change, but you'll need a tool to pull the spool pin out. I really like the hedgehog tool. You can also add PXR gears and clicking drag/cast control.

I'd say fish it for a bit before you paint it; Chances are you'll be buying a purple 103 before too long anyway.

[new2BC4bass]

Congratulations.  Majority of my reels are Daiwas.  Don't have the F model, but picked up the Purple Alphas 103L recently, and have an Alphas ito.  In my opinion the Shimanos are easier to throw light baits with without backlashing.  I do much better with my Curado 51E.  However, I feel most of it is due to the fact my thumb is still in second grade. 

 

Actually I just bought a 105H and Lite power rod (neither shipped yet), and plan on putting some practice time in developing a more educated thumb.  Don't think you will have any problems casting it if you start with 3/8 oz or heavier baits.  Shouldn't take long to become familiar enough with it to start lowering lure weight.

[thehooligan]

Thanks guys, i have successfully got down to 1/8oz baits with my shimanos so hopefully i can do the same with the daiwa. I'll just have to play with the magnetic control till i figure it out.

[skunked_again]

Ive been looking for a while and finally found a pretty good deal on an alphas 103 type F. Ive only owned one daiwa before, a fuego spinning reel so i know they make a really good reel. How does this reel compare to a core 51 in quality and in throwing light baits ?

 

I see it has the magnetic brake which im not used to, do you guys think its easier to use compared to the shimano brakes ?  Im excited to spool this up with my new supercast line 

 

I got this model, id love to get it painted the purple color. I think ill add the abec 7's and levelwind bearing. I did the spool bearings in my 3 shimano bc reels, is it easier/same to do in the daiwa reels ?

 

 

I added the level wind bearing to my Ito and my TD-Z. in the end i felt like i wasted my money. both reels tossed nothing but light cranks. i thought the spool bearing upgrade was worth every penny.

[Silas]

Congrates on the Daiwa!!   My Purple Alpha 103 is absolutely amazing.....on a discontinued but still available Shimano Cumulus!!  Even the colors match. 

[thehooligan]

Thanks, pretty sure this is going on an older cumara.

[Jrob78]

Don't try to change the spool bearings until you get proper spool pin pliers.  Odds are, you will end up damaging something, or at the very least, scratching up the shaft.  I use the Boca spool pin pliers and they work great.  Congrats on a great reel, I would take an Alphas over a Core every time. 

[thehooligan]

Thanks for the headsup, ill fish it this season and tear it apart in the winter when i add the carbontex drags in all my shimanos.

[.ghoti.]

Great little reel, Matt. I have four. One 103, two 103F, and one R. Love "em all. If you ever decide you don't like it, let me know. I'll take it off your hands sight unseen.

You, being used to centrifugal braking will have a learning curve with Magforce. I think you will find that you will need just a bit more spool tension compared to your Shimano reels. I prefer Magforce braking, and now have only Daiwa baitcasters, for that reason. Once you get used to it, if you do, you will see what I mean.

As far as upgrading and tuning goes, here would be my recommendations, based on my experiences with Daiwa reels.

First thing is a drag upgrade. Carbontex washers are nice, but polishing the metal drag washers is just as good. Doing both is an outstanding thing to do.

ABEC 7 bearings will not make the reel any better at throwing lighter weight baits. The only way to do that is to upgrade the spool, which is an expensive proposition, with limited benefit. I did it once and will not do so again. Nowhere near enough bang for the buck there.

Better bearings will make the reel cast a little better. Basically you'll get similar distances with reduced effort. Reducing casting effort will increase accuracy, so it's worth doing. But, this is already a very capable little machine, and a bearing upgrade is a small improvement. My suggestion; stainless steel ABEC 7's from biggreenfish. I do not like ceramic hybrid bearings. They are not much better than SS 7's and are way too noisy. I think my reels should be seen and not heard.

You have a bearing in each knob. Adding one more to each knob is a small increase in smoothness, and may prove to be beneficial in the long term. My two 103F's have different handles. They came that way. I bought both used. One handle had a bearing at the base of the knob, and a bushing at the top. I replaced the bushing with a bearing to give me a four bearing handle. Nice. The other had a bearing at the top of the knob, and a collar at the bottom, which was non-removable. That one is still a two bearing handle. I don't know which reel had the correct handle, or if these were reels from different years, and thus had different handles. Don't know and have not looked for an answer to the question. I put the two BB handle on my least used Fuego, and put the TD-Z handle from the Fuego on the Alphas.

PXR 6.8:1 gears are now available. Three of my Alphas have these gears. I decided to leave one at 5.8:1 for crankbait duty. After trying the new gears in the back yard, I have reconsidered and will be ordering another set of PX gears for the fourth reel. They are that much better. Faster, which was what I wanted, and smoother which I did not expect.

Adding a bearing to levelwind is virtually worthless. Some report this upgrade makes the reel smoother, and makes the line lay on the spool better. Well, it only costs eight bucks for the bearing and nylon collar, so go ahead if it makes you feel better. It's not going to make your reel perform any better. I even managed to get a bearing on the other end of the levelwind on one reel. I had to do some machining, and make some parts to do that little project, and it was truly not worth the effort. So, I have one reel with a bearing on the gear side of the levelwind, and another reel with bearings on both ends of the levelwind. Both are Fuegos. I have four other Fuegos, and the only time I can tell the difference is when I tear them down for cleaning. There is no functional advantage I can detect.

If you have a Dremel, an assortment of felt wheels and some ultra-fine polishing compound, there are several parts which benefit from a good polishing. Metal drag washers, spool ends, metal clutch components and the tip of the levelwind pawl are all candidates. I have polished gear teeth, but have found this to be an uneven upgrade. One reel turned out much smoother, one was a little rougher, and one showed no difference. I will no longer be polishing gear teeth.

Happy tuning.

[5fishlimit]

Congratulations on your reel. I also picked up my first Daiwa recently. I scored a Zillion 100SHLA and am in love with the performance.

I became a fan for life after the first cast.

Tight lines!

[new2BC4bass]

Great post Mr. Ghoti. 

[Silas]

Great post Mr. Ghoti. 

 

X2!!   One of the best analyses of upgrades for the Alphas I've ever seen.   And, I totally concur with the findings. 

 

In ALL cases, I think that once one has an Alpha, he should fish it for a season....at least to see what the reel CAN do.  It can probably perform superbly out of the box.  Many of us like the idea of  "tinkering" with reels to squeeze out even a little more performance.  Nothing wrong with that.  And I think that Ghoti has "nailed it" with his observations!!

 

   I went this same route with motorcycles.....always "improving on the product."  In some cases I even found that a "stock" machine was built just for the likes of me!! 

 

I feel the same about reels.  But the urge is strong.....I think it is basically a "making it my own" type thinking.  And it's fun!  And it gives lots of guys on our forum something to do in the winter when snow and ice are facing them for months. 

 

 I'm going to resist the urge to "ugrade" anything for awhile.  But once you've opened the door to "The Dark Side" , it's hard to go back!!

[Rangerjoe]

What is the IPT for the 5:8-1 and the 6:8-1 gears?

[.ghoti.]

What is the IPT for the 5:8-1 and the 6:8-1 gears?

Approx 23" with the stock gears.

a bit over 27" with the new PXR gear set.

[Rangerjoe]

Thanks, I have a couple of Sols that need this upgrade.

[thehooligan]

Thanks for all that info ghoti !! I'll have to price out the gearing swap, I really like the quickness of my core's 7:1 ratio.

[thehooligan]

Great little reel, Matt. I have four. One 103, two 103F, and one R. Love "em all. If you ever decide you don't like it, let me know. I'll take it off your hands sight unseen.

You, being used to centrifugal braking will have a learning curve with Magforce. I think you will find that you will need just a bit more spool tension compared to your Shimano reels. I prefer Magforce braking, and now have only Daiwa baitcasters, for that reason. Once you get used to it, if you do, you will see what I mean.

As far as upgrading and tuning goes, here would be my recommendations, based on my experiences with Daiwa reels.

First thing is a drag upgrade. Carbontex washers are nice, but polishing the metal drag washers is just as good. Doing both is an outstanding thing to do.

ABEC 7 bearings will not make the reel any better at throwing lighter weight baits. The only way to do that is to upgrade the spool, which is an expensive proposition, with limited benefit. I did it once and will not do so again. Nowhere near enough bang for the buck there.

Better bearings will make the reel cast a little better. Basically you'll get similar distances with reduced effort. Reducing casting effort will increase accuracy, so it's worth doing. But, this is already a very capable little machine, and a bearing upgrade is a small improvement. My suggestion; stainless steel ABEC 7's from biggreenfish. I do not like ceramic hybrid bearings. They are not much better than SS 7's and are way too noisy. I think my reels should be seen and not heard.

You have a bearing in each knob. Adding one more to each knob is a small increase in smoothness, and may prove to be beneficial in the long term. My two 103F's have different handles. They came that way. I bought both used. One handle had a bearing at the base of the knob, and a bushing at the top. I replaced the bushing with a bearing to give me a four bearing handle. Nice. The other had a bearing at the top of the knob, and a collar at the bottom, which was non-removable. That one is still a two bearing handle. I don't know which reel had the correct handle, or if these were reels from different years, and thus had different handles. Don't know and have not looked for an answer to the question. I put the two BB handle on my least used Fuego, and put the TD-Z handle from the Fuego on the Alphas.

PXR 6.8:1 gears are now available. Three of my Alphas have these gears. I decided to leave one at 5.8:1 for crankbait duty. After trying the new gears in the back yard, I have reconsidered and will be ordering another set of PX gears for the fourth reel. They are that much better. Faster, which was what I wanted, and smoother which I did not expect.

Adding a bearing to levelwind is virtually worthless. Some report this upgrade makes the reel smoother, and makes the line lay on the spool better. Well, it only costs eight bucks for the bearing and nylon collar, so go ahead if it makes you feel better. It's not going to make your reel perform any better. I even managed to get a bearing on the other end of the levelwind on one reel. I had to do some machining, and make some parts to do that little project, and it was truly not worth the effort. So, I have one reel with a bearing on the gear side of the levelwind, and another reel with bearings on both ends of the levelwind. Both are Fuegos. I have four other Fuegos, and the only time I can tell the difference is when I tear them down for cleaning. There is no functional advantage I can detect.

If you have a Dremel, an assortment of felt wheels and some ultra-fine polishing compound, there are several parts which benefit from a good polishing. Metal drag washers, spool ends, metal clutch components and the tip of the levelwind pawl are all candidates. I have polished gear teeth, but have found this to be an uneven upgrade. One reel turned out much smoother, one was a little rougher, and one showed no difference. I will no longer be polishing gear teeth.

Happy tuning.

 

Could you tell me the difference between the 103, 103 type f and the 103 r ? Also on the magnetic control, is there a sweet spot to keep the dial on ?

 

I had one on my lews tourney pro and had no idea how to use it, lol.

[.ghoti.]

The 103 is the original purple one. The F is a silver color with a bearing added to each knob. The R has a different spool, different gears, and a two bearing carbon fiber handle with nice compressed cork knobs.

As far as the magforce brakes go, mine stay between 4 and 6 almost all of the time. On the higher end for pitching and casting into the wind. On the lower end for everything else. You will appreciate the ability to fine tune braking without having to open up the reel.

[thehooligan]

Came in today, i paired it up with a 6'3 medium cumara reaction rod. I think im putting 8lb flouro on and this will be a light crank rod. I didnt realize this reel was a 5:8 gear ratio, i thought it was a 6:3. I think i might do that pixy gear swap in the future...

 

Wondering what line i should put on, i bought three different lines to try out that i havent used before, seaguar red label, yozuri ultrasoft, and vicious flouro, hmmm.....

 

[Quitlimpin]

I have a purple alphas on that same rod. I run 8lb yo zuri. It's a really nice setup for small moving baits.

[A-Rob]

Looks great dude...but it's too clean, it needs some fish slime on it!

[thehooligan]

Thanks, ill have it out tomm, i found an old spool of 6lb yozuri hybrid and just spooled it up. Cant wait to try this reel and see how i like it compared to my shimanos.