Piscifun Alloy M review

[Bigbox99]

I've had this reel for about 2 years now.  Time for a review.  It's an aluminum frame plastic handle side plate compact 32mm spool reel with a long carbon fiber handle.  They run about $69 on average but can be sometimes found on Aliexpress for as little as $50.  If you are fans of the Lews LFS or other similar magnetic brake reels then this one may appeal to you. 

 

I personally find the brakes to be on the weaker side forcing me to use spool tension to control the fall rate of the bait which is not something I like to do.  Spool tension should be set to eliminate side to side play and the reel should be able to handle normal casting with normal lines like 15# fluorocarbon.  I find that the narrow level wind and close placement to the spool do not allow stiff lines to flow out of the reel freely on hard bomb casts.  My fix to this was to switch to braid to leader.  I tried spool tension but that made the reel stiff and gearing feeling.  To some people using spool tension to set the bait fall rate is normal but I grew out of that long time ago. 

 

Thankfully braid saved the day and reel has been quite pleasant to use casting and pitching jigs and worms with a palming while casting grip.  The reel really takes the shape of your hand when palming with two fingers in front of the trigger and the high thumb bar let's you enter free spool by pressing the bar with the base of your thumb while palming the reel and and using your thumb pad to thumb the spool.  It's been a real pleasure to use for punching, short target casts and pitching.  

 

 

[scaleface]

I have five of their Phantoms and they have performed flawlessly . One of them is in its fifth year of use. Too bad they have been discontinued.