Daiwa BG Saltist Conventionals?

[mitchman]

Is anyone fishing the BG Saltists? I'm considering a 35 for inshore/light offshore jigging in the northeast spooled with 50lb braid. Seems like there isn't much info or reviews on them out there, but what I have seen is positive. Seems like the only changes over the prior generation are a more robust paint job, carbon drag, and some CRRBs. Did they change the frame at all? I've seen some great deals out there too, but wonder how they compare to the Torium or Fathom star drags?

[Cor]

I bought a Saltist 40 STT40H in November 2005 and initially fished it a lot until 2011.
I do not know if it is precisely the same reel as the one you are referring to but have always regarded it as a strong and durable reel.   I did replace some bearings, magged it, faced the drag washers, replaced washers with Carbontex and then replaced those again with Smoothies dry washers, which I've always preferred.
The clutch release lever packed up and it was replaced by the local agent.   This was apparently a known issue that has by now been corrected.

I've lately used it to catch smaller Yellowfin Tuna, which it has done very well.

This reel has the fastest retrieve rate of all my reels and I find it heavy at 783 gr with line, for constant casting and have therefore moved it to my boat tackle.

The black ones are popular here, particularly the narrower ones.

I consider them good reliable reels at least at par with an old style Torium.

[eguinn]

  Personally I fish 3 of the older silver Saltist's in a 30T & 40T models. The only changes are the gear ratio's, they dropped the low speed models which I think was a dumb idea, you have a lot more torque when fighting bigger fish with the lower gear ratios. The pinion gears,main gears, &  spools are all different, they will interchange if you want to convert the BG reels back to a slower gear ratio. Other than that there are no other changes that I know of.

[SoCalAngler]

mitch,

I tried to post a longer review with pics but for some reason when I hit post on this website, the post just disappears into la la land?

Long story short I fish a BG20H and have for many years. I bought this reel before Penn came out with the Fathom line of reels. Both line of reels have cast frames and cost about the same. For me I would go with the Penn Fathom line before the BG line of conventional reels. As a matter of fact the next cast reel I bought was in fact a Fathom and have brought several to my friends in Mexico that want a strong reel that lasts and are somewhat budget minded.

[mitchman]

Thanks for the input everyone.

[Jeri]

When the first BG came out here in Africa, they earned a terrible reputation for shearing the 'ears' off the pinion gear where it engages the spool. Two years later Diawa introduced a new version with 'special pinion gears' for the Southern African anglers.

Don't know whether it became a wide spread change to the reels, but to take 2 years to correct a fundamental error in design shouts out load that they don't really worry about customers - they just had to sell out the stock before introducing the new version.

I'll get off my cynical stand.

If you have one of the 'new' models then you should be fine.

Cheers from sunny Africa.

Jeri

[SoCalAngler]

Ok, here is a pic of my BG20H, it has a couple of more nicks and such since this pic was taken. But, the black finish lasts way longer that the silver Saltist reels.


I did one other mod to this reel with little to no effect. I changed the right side plastic bushing for a bearing that I removed the shields, cleaned and lubed with TSI 321. For me there was little change in freespool with this and I sure would not do this swap again unless the bushing was messed up in some way.