Reviewing the BG 9000

[mo65]

  This is a reel that gets a lot of flack in fishing forums, but I'm not sure why, as is seems to be a very well built reel. There must be a few folks out there who are in the know...as resale prices indicate...one of these in good shape brings more now than it did when new. My brother snagged this one for me as a Christmas gift, and the fleabay pics below indicate it was in pretty good nick.



  Opening the reel, I was shocked at the components, lots of steel. If this thing is a "cheap Taiwan" reel...I'm just not seeing it.



  Look at those gears! Compared to the 6500c gears on the right, it should be obvious this thing is a beast. I saw in those forums where a guy said these reels did not come with steel gears from the factory...that the steel gears were aftermarket. Then I saw ads where Abu said that it did come with steel gears. Maybe Doc Janssen can shed some light on things.



  No need for a bridge upgrade here...she sports double AR dogs right out of the box! Note that on the bottom of the main gear there is an old style drag clicker, a feature I kinda like.



  There just isn't much brass or plastic under the hood. You have a brass driveshaft(gear sleeve) and a plastic spacer bushing. Everything else is stainless steel. It even has a 5-stack drag!



  I'm not sure what material these drags are made from...it appears to be some kind of teflon or delrin. Once again, in the forums, they get bashed pretty hard. The googans all say when they get wet they stick. This does happen with teflon...kinda like trying to scoot your butt across the bath tub...it chatters. I greased the drags with Cal's purple and they work fantastic. The grease should help keep the water out. I lost about 5 pounds off the top end, but I prefer 15lbs. of smooth power to 20lbs. of chatter.



  The frame is your typical Abu type cage, but it does have 6 screws on the stand, and the cross bars are pretty heavy too. I tried to twist it by hand, like you can do with the little 5500/6500, but it definitely feels more solid.



  The spool has a nice heavy shaft, and the bearings are entirely different sizes.



  You'll see a lot of these reels missing the rubber bumper from the shift lever. Three tiny o-rings make a perfect fix!



  The finished piece sure is a looker, and it has all the muscle to walk the walk.

[handi2]

Thanks for posting. Ive never seen that reel before. It sure looks well built.

[Hardy Boy]

Its always nice to be pleasantly surprised!! Great looking reel and a nice job as always.

Cheers:

Todd

[Crow]

Good job, Mike !

[Gfish]

Nice.
Abu Garcia's answer to the Daiwa Black and Gold series?
Looks pretty sturdy. As always, great pictures. That plastic spacer bushing on the gear sleeve is present on the old Ambassedeur 5000 series, kinda strange amongst all that metal.
I've never heard a this'un either.
I also like the on-the-gear drag clicker on the Abu baitcasters.
What's a range, a 20lb. reel? The presence of an eccrentic system's throwin me a little.

[mo65]

What's a range, a 20lb. reel? The presence of an eccentric system's throwin me a little.

   With a set of Dawn's CF drags...yes...this reel will make 20 pounds easy. Abu claims the stock drags will make 20 pounds too, but I can't deal with the top end chatter, so I sacrificed a few pounds by greasing them. It's a wonder they made any power at all...what can possibly be slipperier than greased teflon?
   I don't have pics of the eccentric system G...but just picture a Penn set up in your mind...it's identical other than the cam is plastic.

[tincanary]

That's a really sweet reel.  How much bigger is it than say a 7000?  What kind of fish would it be used for?  Looks much too big for anything near me lol

[mo65]

  How much bigger is it than say a 7000?  What kind of fish would it be used for? 

   It's not much bigger than the 7000...side plates are about 1/4 inch larger in diameter. The biggest difference is the drags. The 7000 uses the typical Abu 3-stack while the 9000 and 10,000 use a 5-stack. I'll use it for large catfishing.

[thorhammer]

I nabbed one of these in 10000 size a few years back- VGC, $35.00. Now I'm gonna have to open it all the way and see if it's got the SS gear set.

Mike, I think the 9000 has about everything you might ask for in a cat reel to sling a moderate distance, let alone drop off the rail.

[Brewcrafter]

Nice build as always Mo - and the 3 O-rings to replace the bumper on the shift lever - that's genius!  I will probably "borrow" that idea in the future... - john

[oc1]

There's a Cadillac.  Your brother must have been really indebted over fishing trips or something. 
-steve

[thorhammer]

I have a Swedish-made black plated 10000 in LW and non versions- the LW is decently sturdy due to LW guide track bar,  but the non-LW has only two very wimpy crossbars- like Penn 9 diameter. It holds, say, 425 yds of 20 (very similar to Jiggy 500 in size)...but I'd never bump up to 300yds  30lb (mono) on that reel and try to get 12 lbs drag in that reel. I considered drilling out for bars, but I have enough things that size not to.

[philaroman]

was there a 9001/10001 lefty?

[Bryan Young]

Nice looking reel.

[Robert Janssen]

... Maybe Doc Janssen can shed some light on things....

Oh, sorry... i wasn't really paying attention for a minute. Um, right— the Big Game Series.
Well, i don't really know much. The series was introduced in 2004 and included 7000 up to 10 000 sizes. I don't know for how long; a few years anyway. They were made in Taiwan.

I recall there was some noise at the time about the quality of components, specifically the brass gears had a tendency to fail, it was said. BUT, but but, bear in mind that people say dumb things all the time, and i do not know for sure if this was actually true or not. I think that this came of people, or a certain someone, using these reels for deep dropping big lead and habitually stopping the drop by simply poking the reel into gear, which of course would be detrimental to said gears.

I do not recall any mention of stainless steel gears. However, they do mention the double dog feature in the catalog at the time. (Abu, ahead of their time as usual) Maybe, and this is actually a totally feasible maybe, the reels were later improved and upgraded to feature stainless steel gears in later production.

Interesting, maybe these were really decent reels that just flew under the radar, and you just rediscovered them.

.

PS: Phil, they listed a 7001 as available in 2004. Dunno about later years, can maybe look later.

.