If you had to pick one reel company would it be:

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Here in BC  Shimano is head & shoulders above any other manufacturer mainly for engineering quality-distributorship and service are sketchy here for any brand you could name that's small market reality.

Funny from what Ken D. wrote for years I'd have figured just the opposite. He cited simplicity and parts availability as being primary up in his B.C. and shimano is far from those two factors, at least for me and him.   I have never found shimano to be helpful and simply more interested in getting parts to their middlemen than me, the poor end point consumer who was sucker enough to buy their high tech garbage.

For me there is really only one reel company. Abu circa. 1974, still run by the Borgstom family.