Quotewow! it's been a long time since i've posted anything here in ifish. hope you are all well. for me, i turned 70 in puerto vallarta in february. i was stuck at the airport during all of the cartel violence. it took 5 days to get out of the country, but we made it work. i also had successful cancer surgery 6 months ago. i'm taking all of this as a sign that it's time to retire and do more fishing. now, as far as reels for southern california fishing go, i have some general recommendations.....
first, an all aluminum chassis and side plates, no carbon fiber, plastic or nylon frames. don't even ask.
drag range - 30% of your topshop line weight at strike and hopefully 50% at full. this "50% at full" is where most reels fall short. it usually takes too much tweaking to get to this level, but there a few tricks to modify certain reels. few reels achieve this level of performance out of the box. these really are design issues. it's not hard to design a reel that can achieve this level of performance, but few manufacturers see the need. it's ok. no one ever listens to me anyway.
two speed only - don't be cheap. think of your sore rotator cuffs. and think of your friends. no one wants to watch you fight a fish for hours.
large offset handle grips on everything. even 30# reels. if you don't like these larger grips, simply learn to tolerate pain and discomfort. then you can change out the handle grips.
line capacities - i define "line class" as the weight of the topshot. topshots are usually short for this fishery, so the bulk of the line is braid. for a reel with a 30# topshot, i like to see 300 yards of braid. a 40# line class reel would be 350 yards. i want 400 yards of braid on a 50# line class reel, and 450 yards on a 60# line class reel. for 80, 100 and 130, i want to see 500, 600 and 700 yards of braid respectively. if you want to fish a little more or a little less, i'm not worried. if it's alot more or alot less, maybe we should talk first.
double drag systems are preferred over single drag systems - well, obviously you get a higher drag range. i have penn torques. great reels, but torques and fathoms are single drag systems. i can make them work just fine. plain avet are single drag. avet raptors are double drag.
greased carbon fiber - i can't hardly believe that i still have to say this, but greased drags are better. every major reel manufacturer uses greased carbon fiber, except avet. so i have a tub of cal's pure teflon drag grease to fix that issue.
ok, so, gentlemen, now you have your operating parameters. perhaps you can use these to frame further discussion. you may find it helpful. for jim, his reels will likely be the last reels from oregon that i will ever work on. you have perfectly capable reel techs in the northwest. but jim asked for my advice, and i recommended the raptors. this was done knowing full well that they would need work. he was willing to follow my recommendations, so i am responsible for making sure that these reels perform to their maximum potential. i think he will be pleased with the results.
Well stated, Alan!
Best, Fred
Yep, that's the way I roll!
Yup. Hopefuly Jim will get on the November SOA 10 day.