ksbasser

Deep, I'm a hard core revo user. I bought 8 stx reels when they first came out. I bought an Sx and swapped the gears from a winch to get my own SX in a 5:1.1 ratio. Before I bought all the STX reels, I had a full set of Curado SF reels and a couple of Chronarchs. I was instantly able to get longer casts with less effort, but my over run occurrences went way up. At first I thought I had lost my touch. I did some research and found that you set them up a little different and I tried that. It helped a lot, but I still got more over runs than I used to. I almost decided to sell them all, but I stuck with it. I learned that I had to use a little more tension and a little more thumb, but I always knew that although they were smooth as silk, they were more prone to over run. The Sx on the other hand worked a lot better for me. It doesn't have the 2 part spool shaft and after it was cleaned and tuned, it casts great with hardly any over run problems. Last year I had almost decided to sell all the STX reels and replace them with SX reels. I heard that the 2010 STX reels would have dual brakes so I waited to check them out. The first time I tried one I knew I had found my reel. The dual brakes cover the start and the end of the cast and I can cast virtually thumb free now. I sold all the pre 2010 STX reels on ebay for around $130 each. I found an ebay dealer that had the new 2010 as a buy it now for $164 I bought a couple and then saw that he was also running some on auction. I replaced the rest from the auction and got some of them for $130 to $140. I had a good reason to stay with the revos. I liked the size, the shape, the quality and the drag power comes in handy when I fish for wipers and stripers. If you keep the pre 2010 STX, you will always have to use more thumb than you use with your other reels, that's just the way it is, but you can learn to use it with a minimum of over runs.

Thats why the 2010 revos have dual brakes. I sold all my pre 2010 revos. I liked the reel, but I have to admit that you could back lash the heck out of it if you didn't stay right on top of things. One thing thats important to remember, they don't set up quite the same as a centrifugal reel. To start with, you should always turn the mag dial to zero before you set the fall rate the the weight of the bait. If you have the mags set while you do the cast cap tension, then the mags will be to light when you cast. So, mags at zero, then set cast cap tension to almost no fall, then set mags back to desired setting. If you can't get it, sell it for a profit on ebay and buy the 2010.

I use small glass jars that contacts come in. They work great for small bearings. I use a small baby food jar for bigger bearings. I use medicine dropper to suck up a small amount of acetone and squirt in the jar. I then set the jar in the sonic cleaner with the fluid level lower than the cap on the jar. It only takes a minute or two for the the acetone to get very dirty on the first pass. Dump the acetone and refill with fresh acetone. Repeat the process until the acetone stays clear. This usually takes 3 times for most bearings. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes to have completly clean bearings. As bilgerat said, make sure you don't have rubber or plastic seals or shields. Those bearings can be cleaned the same way with diluted simple green, but it takes longer.

I won a contest for a new rod from Airrus rods. I get my pick of any rod from the line up. I could really use a good spinning rod for small shaky head jigs. I can't decide between their Copperhead series or the Ultra XL series, and then I still don't know which spinning rod in those lines would be the best for shaky head fishing. If anyone has any experience with these rods, or if you just want to check them out on the website and give me your opinions with reasons for the pick, it would be helpful Thanks

I would add a pro : you can upgrade drags with revo drag washers. You can always upgrade bearings if you feel the need, but they use good bearings, and with the JM Gold, the titanium finish would be a nice benefit. Con, I have not seen the JM gold on sale yet, but it's already a good price. Con, I was able to buy brand new 2010 Revo STX for $160 from an ebay dealer. Thats the only reason I didn't get the JM gold for myself.

A lot of anglers like it, myself included. As for the color, I use the green. Flouro is not invisible, that's a false notion. It's supposed to be less visible underwater because of the refractive index. That simply means that light doesn't reflect off of it differently than water. That may help it to be less visible in very clear water, but mostly it helps to keep it from glaring with light reflection. I use fluoro for it's other properties such as sensitivity and the fact that it sinks instead of floating. I use the green because it blends in with vegetation and the color of the water I fish in most.

X2 I was thinking the same thing. I wonder why it is that so many of us have such differing experiences with the same products. I have been using trilene 100% for 3 years now. I mostly use the 15 lb and I have only had a break off when I should have retied . Like any line, if you let it get nicked up all day and don't cut and re tie it, it will eventually break. But I have pulled in snagged limbs crawled across rocks etc, etc. I think it's one of the best for casting reels. I hate it for spinning reels though. I found Seaguar invisx seems to work a lot better for spinning reels. I use 6lb with that and have very little problems. I also hate braid and just cant understand how so many guys can love it to the point of using it most of their rigs. I was down to only using it for very thick weeds and my C rig rod for the no stretch factor. I now have 20 lb trilene on those because I just hated using braid. I need to try a few of the lines you guys have mentioned here, but it still seems very strange that so many have such different opinions on them.

I have to agree with the first post. There is no best. It's all opinions. I have used some cheap walmart rods that were very sensitive and I have tried some expensive rods that seemed a little lame in that area. I know of several inexpensive reels that if properly cared for will last a very long time. I have seen very expensive reels that had problems way before they should have. There is nothing wrong with wanting or owning nice equipment, but there is something wrong with making others feel like their equipment is inferior. We should be telling new anglers that the most important thing they can do is to get out and fish, learn to use whatever equipment they can afford to the best of their ability. The flip side to that is there is nothing wrong with owning and using multiple rigs or expensive rigs. If you can afford them, then there are some advantages to having rigs setup for several situations instead of just one or two multi purpose rigs. Just remember, it's not about who has the nicest stuff, it's about enjoying the sport and passing it on. Lets not ruin the experience for someone by suggesting that they need expensive equipment or dozens of rigs.

I don't have a recomendation for a certain bearing. I use boca bearings. I get some from VXB and I have tried a few of the more expensive brands of hybrids such as rockets and some of the japan imports. My opinion is that different reels respond differently to each bearing. I put boca OS 7 bearings in my own Revo STX. The reel was uncontrolable with those bearings. The best bearing I found for a Revo is the stock bearing after it's been flushed or any quality brand of a 3 or 5 rating, as long as it's recomended for fishing reels. Boca does a good job of listing bearings as being suitable for that purpose. You really need to know what you are looking for to get bearings from some other sources. I know several guys that have put the OS 7 bearings in old and new curados. They seem to work very good in those reels, but so would a good abec 5 from a top brand. I prefer open bearings and I love the shimano ARB bearings. They are an abec 3 by the way. I have compared the ARB and the boca OS 7 side by side a few times. I get a few seconds more free spin time from the boca when they are both dry. Casts made with the same reel alternating between those 2 bearings were so similar that I could not tell much difference. That was in a curado 200. Before someone spends a bunch of money on fancy bearings, they should talk to someone that has used those bearings in the same reel or visit with Mike of Delaware valley. He is a boca dealer and should be able to tell you what the best bearing for your reel would be.

but the statement that the tighter tolerance means there is more resistance in the bearing which is not true. I see what you are saying. I think didn't do a good job of explaining what I meant. Here is the original statement Bearings with very tight tolerances will generally have more resistance than a bearing that's loose. Instead of stating this as fact, i should have stated it as an observation. I sell bearings in my on line store. I also replace a lot of bearings in my customers reels. I've tried bearings from every source I can find and in every abec rating. I've found that a lot of the higher rated bearings from some companies are actually very stiff. My conclusion is that although they are very precise in rating they were not designed to spin easy. Therefore, you could buy 2 abec 7 bearings from 2 different companies and find that one might spin very easy and free while the other might only spin a second or two before it stops. If the manufacturer lists it as a fishing reel bearing, then odds are that it's suited to that purpose, but very few if any bearings are designed exclusively to be fishing reel bearings. This could be the reason you often hear from people that had their bearings upgraded, but didn't see any difference or even preferred the stock bearings. I recently tried a set of abec 9 bearings and found that they didn't have as much free spin time as a set of abec 5 bearings from the same company. In their defense though, the bearings in question are not advertised as a fishing reel bearing. I'm not arguing what anyone has said here, I simply want everyone to understand that the abec rating is not an indicater of how free the bearing will spin, there is no rating in use that governs that.

here are some links to some good true info about bearings and abec ratings. In my own experience, I have found that many bearings with high abec ratings don't have very long free spin times. I have also found some low rated bearings that very long free spin times. After researching articles such as these and talking with the reps from the bearing distributors that I use, I have concluded that design of the races and shields has much more impact on free spin than the abec rating. http://www.planetseafishing.com/features/read/battle-of-the-bearings/ http://www.bassfishingandcatching.com/fishing-reel-bearings.html http://www.seskate.com/ABEC.html http://www.arkansasstripers.com/garcia-ambassadeur-C4-casting-reels.htm One thing all of these articles have in common is that they all agree that design and materials are much more important for a fishing reel than the abec rating. You should also keep in mind that most high quality reels have very good bearings. Cleaning , tuning and the use of a high quality oil will make most of them perform better than most of us are capable of using them. If you need to set several brakes and tighten the cast control, then it's already spinning easier than you can use it. If your bearings are worn and need replaced or if your reel isn't of the highest quality, then it may make good sense to replace the bearings and upgrade them to a better designed bearing. If you just like to personalize your gear and want to know that you have the best designed and highest quality bearings, then that's fine also, but you may find that doing that to some reels will make them spin to easy to be able to use them without back lashing. I should also point out that most new bearings should be cleaned thoroughly and then oiled before use. Some will have a residue that that will hinder the performance if it's not cleaned first.

the design of the bearing has way more impact on performance than the abec rating. Ahiger abec rating means that the bearing has tighter tolerances. Fishing reels don't need tight tolerances in the bearing, they need bearings that spin easy with very little resistance. Bearings with very tight tolerances will generally have more resistance than a bearing thats loose. If you want to upgrade your reels performance with bearings, then you need to use bearings that have very little resistance. The easisest way to do that is with open sided, un-sheilded bearings. Shimano recognized this when they introduced the open sided ARB bearings that they use in many of the top end casting reels. The retail price of ARB bearings is quite expensive. A better solution would be to get Boca Orange seaal bearings and then remove the rubber seals. You can remoe the seals by prying them out with a needle. Using open bearings also makes it much easier to keep the bearings clean. Boca orange seals don't need any oil on the balls, they spin the besy dry, but the cage and race are stainless steel and will corrode if not protected. I use a very this oil, rocket fuel tournament grade, to protect boca orange seal bearings. I remove the seals, put one tiy drop in the bearing and spin it to fling as much off as posible and then use my fingers to smear the outside with a thin film of oil. The rocket fuel tournament grade is almost thinner than water. It won't slow the bearing down.

If the side doesn't lift off easily, then you probably missed a screw. Most reels have hidden screws. Take the brake side off first, remove the spool. You will probably see a screw on the back side that was hidden by the spool. There also may be a full length screw across the front of the reel that you get to with the brake side off also. Even though you only used a drop of oil, if it was kinda thick and it got on the spool shaft and then in the pinion gear, that could slow it all down. Wipe the shaft off and then peel a little cotton off a Q-tip until it's small enough to slide in the pinion gear. wipe the gear out and put it back together.

It could be that your spinning reel has a stronger drag. All reels are different. Some have multiple discs and plates, some only have a couple. Any new stock reel should be just fine for it's intended purpose. As Micro stated, if you used the same size line you might be able to pull it off the spinning reel also. If you put light line on the casting reel, it might break at your tightest setting.

I didn't make any claims as it being a scientific test or even that it is the same way the factory tests the drag. I simply tested the straight from the reel pull out. If I test the carbontex washers in the same manor, the difference will be fact. I would still welcome any actual results from those of you that have an E reel. Test it any way you want to, but tell us how you tested it.

I put Shane J's E7 back together. I tightened the star drag as tight as I would ever crank my own reel. I hung my digital scale and hooked the line to it. I got 3.8 lbs of resistance with a fairly smooth pull. I cranked the star tighter, beyond where I would ever crank my own, and got it up to 6.3 lbs resistance, but it was starting to get jerky and had a let off that bounced between 5 to 6 lbs. I cranked the star even tighter, If I wasn't going to put new washers in the reel, I would be afraid that I had smashed them at this point. I had the star as tight as I could turn it by hand without risking that it would break the star.The reel got up to 8.5 lbs resistance at peak but was very jerky and bounced between 7 and 8.5 resistance. I took the reel back apart. The top washer is now ruined and the steel plate has parts of the washer stuck to it. I will have to scrape the dartanium off of the plate. This was not a scientific test, but my scale is accurate. The reel was not on a rod, it was direct pull. I believe that if any of you that have an E7 were to tighten the drag to the point that you would normally set it at and then hook it to a scale, you would probably see that you have about 3 to 5 lbs of drag. Setting it any tighter than that would scare most people as it would be getting so tight you might break something. Don't worry Shane, I didn't hurt your reel, but it's a good thing I'm putting new drag washers in it now.

One nice thing about having more drag than you need, is that you don't have to tighten the star all the way down to get the setting you want to use. Cranking a reel drag that tight can smash the drag washers and flatten the drag springs. Some anglers use bass reels for other , larger species. As long as the rod is capable of handling the strain, then there is nothing wrong with having a higher drag strength. As I stated in the fisrt post, there is plenty of room in an E series reel for a bigger drag washer. Smoothdrag has a carbontex washer that will fit in the E reels and has about four times the surface contact area as the stock washer. They are planning on offering an upgrade kit with the bigger washer but for now you need to order it as a single washer from the list of measured washers. I will post before and after drag resistence when the reel is done, I should have checked the stock drag before I took it apart, I guess I will put the stock washers back and check it on a scale before I put the new ones in.

I am curious if any one here has tested their curado E reels to see how much resistence the drag has at the point they normally tighten the crank to. I know that the listed resistence is 12 lbs for the E5 and 11 lbs for the E7. I have heard some say that they have not been able to get that much resistence from their reels, at least not without cranking it so tight that it wouldn't slip smoothly if a fish did pull line. I know some folks don't believe in upgrades and some do. I'm not looking for an argument about weather the curado has enough drag or not, just some input as to what you actually get with field settings so to speak. I am in the process of cleaning and upgrading some reels and one of them is an E7. I noticed that the top drag washer is way skinnier than it needs to be. there is very little contact surface between it and the gear. I think that the reason is because shimano stamps both washers out of the same sheet of material. You can slide the top washer around the bottom washer and it's a perfect fit. That lets them save money with less waste, but if you were to use a bigger washer, you would have more contact surface and therefore would have more available drag or would not have to crank it down as tight to get the amount of resistence you use.

Boca orange seals are about 16 bucks each from Boca. Some reel shops sell them for 14 bucks each. I believe that the smoothdrag set of carbon fiber washers for a Fuego is actually 8 bucks.

I really don't understand the thoughts of some that say the PQ will wear uot faster than an STX or any other reel. Have you opened one up and looked inside? Have you done a directcomparison between the two over time in reels that were treated exactly alike? I know that many of you may have bought some of the cheapest BPS reels and not been happy with them. They do sell some that are very cheap and those reels will not last. The thing is, so does every other reel brand out there. Most brands have cheap lines that you can buy at wally world, stay away from those. BPS has a bunch for less than 50 bucks, I don't recomend them. BPS also sells some reels that have a smooth handle, no nut plate. Thsoe don't last. The drag knob will get sloppy and strips easy. The current PQ is built just as good as many reels at twice the price. The STX has a few parts on it that are slightly higher quality such as the drag discs and plated pawl/worm gear. BPS sellas a lot of reels that had plastic spool shaft shims instead of the better quality ceramic fiber discs. I was surprised to see that they used ceramic discs in the new PQ. I was planning on putting revo spool shims in my buddies PQ, but it already has them. If you like the looks, design and cost of the PQ, get several, you won't regret it. If you can easily afford the STX, get those and get a couple piars of willey X glasses, thats a good deal, or just buy a fe PQ's and use the saved money to buy a good pair of glasses

If you didn't have the thumb bar fully engaged, then the pinion gear was probably very close the the spool drive pin. They evidently connected during the cast and probably chewed the end up a bit. It could have also damaged the drive gear as the spinning spool would have jerked the pinion fairly hard. The good news is that BPS has a no questions over the counter warranty. Just take or send it back and they will give you a new one during the first year or you could have bought an extended warranty for a few dollars more and had the same coverage foe 3 or 4 years. BPS has the best reel warranty in the market.

I have worked on hundreds of BPS reels. The parts are very easy to get from the BPS rod and reel parts center. BPS is the only one of the big box stores that has a reel service center and stocks parts for their branded reels. Pure fishing owns abu and Pfluger. Thus the similarity between so many of those reels. I have directly compared the new STX with the new PQ. The PQ has a full spool shaft and the STX has a two part. The mag brakes are slightly different but would interchange if you swapped them. Several parts are identical, some are the same exact size but different materials. The STX has a plated worm gear and pawl, the PQ doesn't, but neither does a lot of reels. The STX has carbon drags, the PQ has nylon, but they can be replaced with the carbon if you wanted to upgrade the PQ. The revo has a better anti reverse bearing, but the PQ has the same bearing that a lot of more expensive reels use. I don't know what plant the PQ is made at, but Pure owns them both. I do know that the PQ is built just as good as the Revo, but a few of the parts are not quite as durable. In a nutshell, there is no reason not to buy a PQ. It's a great reel and parts will be available and it can be upgraded as well. In theory the STX should cast more free because of the 2 part spool shaft. I have used both, and I'm not sure I could tell the difference in a blind test.

No one seems to know why the instructions that come with most reels are always so sucky. Anyway, there is a knurled thumb screw with a slot. it's on the top side of the crank side . Loosen it until it pops out on it's spring. Keep it pulled out and then rotate the brake side plate up at the nose. Some reels will open easy and some might be tight. If it's tight, make sure the thumb screw is still at it's out spot and then tap up on the front of the opposite side with a small rubber hammer or the handle of a rubberized screwdriver. When the brake plate is rotated a 1/4 turn, it is free to pop off, remove it and then you can see the side of the spool and the cent. brakes. pop the spring loaded brake tabs out for the on position and in for the off position. try to keep a balanced pattern. I have two on and 4 off, the two on are across from each other. Apply grease to the locking tabs of the side cover before you twist it back on, that will make it come off easier next time.

If you buy a reel from Bass Pro, you get a one year ,over the counter warranty. any problems are no problems. you can also pay a small fee and get that extended to 3 years. After the warranty is up, BPS still has support for you reel in the form of their own service center and parts dept. You can order parts from them, have a reel repair tech that works on bps reels fix it for you or send it to the Springfield bps service center. If you buy a store brand from any other company, you might regret that if you need work in the future. Some stores may switch out an almost new reel, but most tell you to send it the address on the warranty card. Then, if you ever want to replace a part yourself or have an independent reel person work on it you may also be SOL. None of the other store brands have a parts dept. You have to try to contact the company on the warranty card. Then you have to hope they have some parts from a similar house brand that fits your re brand reel or that anyone there can even remember building that reel for the store re brand. I have ran into this several times.

I have to sugest the Pro Qualifier if you can find some in stock. My fishing bud bought 3 of them this season. They have the dual brake system which drastically reduces backlash problems. He loves the reels. They cast great. The fit is much better than low end BPS reels. This last weekend he brought his reels to my shop for a mid season clean and re lube. I pulled one of my 2010 revo stx reels apart for comparison. With the exception of the spool shaft, they are very nearly identical inside. The revo has a better drag, but the PQ could be upgraded for less than 10 bucks. The revo has a few higher quality parts such as the plating on the worm gear and pawl, but the PQ parts look like they should hold up just fine. After looking at the insides of both these reels, I would have to say that the only good reason to buy an STX instead of the PQ is the free pair of wiley X glasses and the better drag. PS, my friend is trying to find some more now. the online bps is currently sold out.