Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Hi - newbie here with a question about the TLD 30ii vs the TLD50ii ...

If one takes the play out of the drag plate and changes the Belleville washers so as to up the drag of a TLD30ii to the same drags as you get with a TLD50ii ... which reel is more likely to give out/ have a frame failure on a big fish?

Basically I would rather use the TLD30's with say 60lb braid and 40lb mono top shot for the fishing (trolling from a center console) than the 50's ... if all else was equal as they are lighter and nicer to handle.

Fish that one might encounter would be anything from a sail to a 200lb yellowfin to a 600lb blue marlin.

Don't need to keep the billfish - just tag and release.

I own both reel types.

i cracked the TLD 50 II frame with 25 pounds of drag.  i would not recommend it at all.  with just 40 pound mono, you could use straight mono and do fine  make sure the bellevilles are in the "(())" configuration.  you should get an easy 12 pounds of drag at strike and 20 pounds at full.  don't bother with braid for a reel like this. 

honestly, though, i would not use either reel.  for fishing this pound class, i would recommend at makaira 50 or penn international 50.  you would be looking at 700 yards of 130 pound braid and a 100 foot topshot of 130 pound mono, 40 pounds of drag at strike and 60 to 65 pounds of drag at full. 

Quote from: alantani on July 11, 2025, 12:24:19 AMi cracked the TLD 50 II frame with 25 pounds of drag.  i would not recommend it at all.  with just 40 pound mono, you could use straight mono and do fine  make sure the bellevilles are in the "(())" configuration.  you should get an easy 12 pounds of drag at strike and 20 pounds at full.  don't bother with braid for a reel like this. 

honestly, though, i would not use either reel.  for fishing this pound class, i would recommend at makaira 50 or penn international 50.  you would be looking at 700 yards of 130 pound braid and a 100 foot topshot of 130 pound mono, 40 pounds of drag at strike and 60 to 65 pounds of drag at full. 

Thank you Alan. I understand they are not ideal and maybe I will slowly upgrade - but at the moment it's what I have.

Would you say the 30 frames are stronger than the 50?

i think that the 30 frame is definitely stronger than the 50.  the 20 frame is stronger than both!!!

Both my TLD 20 II and 30 have topless aluminum frames. Much stronger than the stock graphite!

Quote from: alantani on July 11, 2025, 04:51:20 AMi think that the 30 frame is definitely stronger than the 50.  the 20 frame is stronger than both!!!

Does this beg the question that be is better off with a 20 or 30 with braid for line capacity than a 50?

Or are there another advantages to the 50 than line capacity - like a better/ smoother drag because it's bigger?

honestly, i would go with the tld 20 two speed, 80 pound braid and a topshot of 50-60 pound mono, 15 pounds of drag at strike and 25 pounds of drag at full. 

You are playing with fire fishing those reels if a 600 blue marlin is a prospect. A fired up one will spool a TLD30 on the first run, especially if you're running 40lb topshot and appropriate drag.
I'd be looking at Talica or Makaira 50s with 80lb hollowcore and matching topshot.

Quote from: boon on July 13, 2025, 02:03:58 AMYou are playing with fire fishing those reels if a 600 blue marlin is a prospect. A fired up one will spool a TLD30 on the first run, especially if you're running 40lb topshot and appropriate drag.
I'd be looking at Talica or Makaira 50s with 80lb hollowcore and matching topshot.

I would be interested in thoughts on "Light Gauge" fishing  ... which would obviously not stress a reel out in the same way...

 

Even fishing "Light Gauge" Bonze isn't fluffing about with TLD30s. He fishes Tiagra 50ws as far as I'm aware. There is far more to a game reel than just the raw drag number; a TLD doesn't have the thermal mass to deal with a fish ripping 1000yd of line off it in a single run.

Worst case you get spooled by a big girl and leave her towing your 750 yards or whatever of braid around until the hook falls out.

Quote from: TangoDelta1981 on July 14, 2025, 08:10:43 AM

Quote from: boon on July 13, 2025, 02:03:58 AMYou are playing with fire fishing those reels if a 600 blue marlin is a prospect. A fired up one will spool a TLD30 on the first run, especially if you're running 40lb topshot and appropriate drag.
I'd be looking at Talica or Makaira 50s with 80lb hollowcore and matching topshot.

I would be interested in thoughts on "Light Gauge" fishing  ... which would obviously not stress a reel out in the same way...

Roughly the same technique is now the most popular way to catch billfish on fly fishing gear.  The goal is to encourage the fish not to sound by using extremely light drag ( like 3 lbs or so) and use the boat to run down the fish on the surface.  For the stronger billfish species like blue marlin, they often use a sinking head line under the belief that the line being lower in the water will cause the fish to swim upward against the load.

I lost my desire for targeting billfish many years ago, but have been on boats where striped marlin and sailfish have been caught with this technique. It is very doable with anglers of minimal skill and a good captain.

Wearing the fish out on the surface is not the issue.  Lifting the fish after it sounds and swims slowly is the hard part.  On fly gear, the practical limit for billfish seems to be around 200 lbs.   With conventional gear, you can go larger, but when the marlin sounds toward the end of the fight, you will still need enough drag to be able to lift it.   I never tried to dredge up a tired marlin over maybe 250 lbs, so I can't tell you how doable it is with a reel that can handle 20 lbs at sunset (at this point, you are lifting the fish, it is not taking line)and a marlin three times that size.  It seems like it is possible, but it doesn't meet my criteria for fun. It probably is not great for a fish that you intend to release.  Killing a billfish from exhaustion is not that rare.

Yellowfin are different.  Tuna  are endurance swimmers, and you need to use as much load as you have available to stop them.  And yellowfin tend to sound pretty readily, so you can't trick them into staying up on the surface. 

If you are expecting to catch yellowfin mostly under 100 lb and marlin under 200 lbs, a TLD20  two speed seems like a good match to me.  Rigging up to optimize your chances for the the largest possible fish means that you will be pulling in lots of 30 lb tuna with a 30W behemoth of a reel on a big game stick.

As to which TLD model: the location of the failure point on the frames all look to be about the same design and thickness to me.  the taller the spool and (especially) the wider the frame, the greater the leverage, which increases the load at the weak spot  for same amount of drag.

A slightly larger drag disk diameter at the expense of load on the weak spot doesn't  seem like a good tradeoff to me.  But it is hard to know for sure without load testing to failure.  We do know that the TLD50 frame failures are not uncommon, and that TLD20 frame failures are rare (I haven't heard of one), but I would speculate that the 50s are also more likely to have been pulling on bigger fish at heavier drag settings.

 -J

Quote from: boon on July 14, 2025, 12:55:02 PMEven fishing "Light Gauge" Bonze isn't fluffing about with TLD30s. He fishes Tiagra 50ws as far as I'm aware. There is far more to a game reel than just the raw drag number; a TLD doesn't have the thermal mass to deal with a fish ripping 1000yd of line off it in a single run.

Worst case you get spooled by a big girl and leave her towing your 750 yards or whatever of braid around until the hook falls out.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who has chipped in.

Secondly, it is apparent that I should be upgrading my reels just in case that big girl comes along - or that occasional very big yellowfin (200lbs plus).

Fish like these are not common where I am but common enough that if I fish long enough there is a good chance of hooking one and I don't want tackle failure to be the reason I loose one.

However, I also don't want to be lugging heavy Tiagras to and from my boat and we also catch so many smaller fish - mahi, wahoo, small tuna etc - that I want something lighter.

Should I be looking at the Talicas or equivalent - and which ones should I be looking at.

I was put off the Speedmasters by them not having harness lugs.

Have you considered Penn International reels? A VISX 20 or 30 would do what you are trying to do.  I prefer my VISX 16 for plus size BFT and the 16 or 20 for plus size YFT. I have zero interest in marlin and I  break them off when I hook one.

I like Makaira's! I have the 15T, 16, 20, 50, all SEa's. I caught a large cow (298#) and a super (321#) on the 20 w/100# and a cow (270#) on the 50.

With a 40# top shot the TLD 30 would be fine. I fish mine with a 60# top shot for local trolling. I caught a 60# BFT dragging a cedar plug.