redmeansdistortion

No offense taken. What kept Abu relevant were the Japanese. The former distributor for Abu in Japan was Olympic, who went bankrupt in 2000. This is when Pure Fishing took over and created Pure Fishing Japan, who then slowly introduced more American market type reels to Japan while watering down the Ambassadeur in the process. Some of the best reels ever made by Abu were Japanese market only, like later releases of the 1500C/2500C, Morrum Mag and Ultra Mag, 1600C/2600C, later versions of the Cardinal 3 and 33 spinning reel, and some others I'm missing. It's what the market there wanted, while those elsewhere were wanting something different. It had to do with the Ambassadeur being a status symbol in Japan. When the yen was weak in the 1970s, an Ambassadeur cost a month's salary, so only the well off could afford it. This spawned companies like Daiwa and Isuzu who made reels inspired by the Ambassadeur for their own market, but at a cheaper cost. Isuzu now is without a doubt the finest maker of classic style round baitcast reels.

The Alphas variants, OG Pixy aside, all have the same drag capacity of ~9lb, whether it's an Alphas 103, Alphas Ito, PX68, Alphas Finesse Custom, or Air Stream Custom. The newer TW variants, the finesse models do in fact have a lesser drag capacity by about 3lb, but that drag is still plenty good. 7lb is more than plenty for any form of light line fishing. The only guys around me fishing drag that high are skipping bass across the surface of the water or fishing musky, sturgeon, or trolling for Great Lakes kings.

The Pixzilla drag is a kit that adds one more drag washer and an additional drag disc, increasing surface area which adds to the capacity.

New gears for the 2500C courtesy of Simon Shimomura. The new gears are 6.3:1 and good for 23" per turn. Even better, they bring the drag capacity up from 6lb to 11lb as Simon went with a tighter tolerance over OEM and less teeth, while retaining the factory dimensions of the gears. Here is an Avail pinion on the left, and Simon's on the right. The Avail pinion is only good for 2lb. I have installed the gears and they are noisy, but Simon did say they will quiet with use and so far that has proven to be true. He made these himself and they are very smooth even though they aren't micro gears. The ice should be off the water soon enough, can't wait.

Believe it or not, some of the saltwater rods are rated to near that weight, but they also have a minimum weight in the 1.5-3g range due to the progressive taper. Abu KRX Prototype Bait Finesse comes to mind. Major Craft also has a trout rod that's rated 5-21g, so 3/16-3/4. Plenty of examples out there if you look around. Those examples are not bass rods. Many of the bass rods top out at either 7g, 11g, and in some instances 14g. Pick your reel and choose your rod according to your target species.

The biggest misconception about BFS is that it's the equivalent to ultralight spinning. This is the general mentality of the YouTubers and other social media with a predominately Western audience. Much of that stems from where most of them got started; cheap AliExpress reels and trout rods. First and foremost, BFS is the reel itself. A light shallow spool, low inertia bearings, and a brake to make them work in unison. Aside from the spool being light weight, the depth also keeps the retrieval rate somewhat consistent. With a deeper spool, the retrieval rate nosedives as you get deeper into the spool. BFS spools, while not immune to this, do mitigate it to some extent. Second, the thinner lines used are also beneficial to casting distance since there will be less friction with the rod eyelets. Next, the rods. The only rods that come adorned with the BF nomenclature are bass rods and saltwater rods. Trout rods are entirely different, even though the powers and weight ranges may be similar. Bass rods tend to have a more narrow range of weights, mostly because they are para taper which means they bend more in the middle and butt sections. This is required for some bass fishing due to the environments they're found. It's much easier getting a bass out of the slop with a bass rod than it is a trout rod. Conversely, trout and saltwater rods are progressive taper, meaning they bend more in the tip and less the closer to the butt you get. This serves two purposes; to keep the fish pinned during the fight, and offer a wider range of weights to cast. Not all trout rods are meant to cast tiny spoons and spinners, some are meant for larger lures for bigger migratory fish. My three favorite trout rods are 3-18g/4-10lb, 3-12g/3-8lb, and 5-16g/4-10lb respectively. They're meant for big fish and have tapers that help keep them pinned and under control during those runs and head shakes. Those rods were designed from the ground up to work with BFS reels. I use them for lake run brown trout, steelhead, and coho salmon. For those I'm often throwing 4-10g spoons and minnow style baits. As far as AliExpress trout rods go, most of those are built on American style UL spinning blanks, which are usually para taper buggy whips. They can cast very light lures, but they can't handle more formidable fish very well. For smaller resident trout and panfish, they're just fine. Sure, you can fish bass and larger migratory fish with them, but they aren't the right tool for the job due to their inefficiencies for such fish.

I don't discriminate. If it's good, it's good. I can appreciate anything that's well made regardless if it's a vehicle, knife, cookware, or fishing gear.

That converts to 0.152mm, slightly larger than X-Braid #0.8, which is 0.148mm. Not too bad of a discrepancy, I'd try it out myself.

Yep, many of us here run YGK X-Braid. I just spooled my '17 Conquest BFS with #1.2 (25lb) that I will use for migratory trout on a Palms Rera Kamuy 6'9" ML. I run #0.8 (16lb) on my bushwhacking reels. Lines developed for the US market have arbitrary measurements which makes the listed strength meaningless. Additionally, many of those lines have false diameter measurements, often listing the diameter thinner than what it truly is. Sufix is a big offender of this on both fronts, but this new line they have may make me consider them again in the future since it's made from Izanas.

Tatula takes an 830 in the palm side and a 1030 in the crank side. Like I said, I have them if you need them. I just sent a set out to a guy in Grand Rapids the other day for the same reel.

Daiwa uses NMB bearings from the factory which are already of exceptional quality. I run them in all of my reels, even my bench tuned BFS Ambassadeurs and they perform just as good as the Hedgehog and Roro bearings I've used previously and are much quieter. I have plenty on hand if you need them. I remove the shields, flush with brake cleaner, then apply a thin film lube and they really fly. Something to keep in mind with bearings; the ABEC standard doesn't account for internal clearances, raceway finish, cage finish, or ball quality. ABEC is simply the tolerance of how a bearing fits to a shaft or housing. A well made ABEC 1 will outperform a poor quality ABEC 7 and so on. Quality bearing manufacturers can easily produce at least ABEC 5 tolerances with modern tooling. It's merely a marketing point now that isn't indicative of performance.

A little backstory. My daytime employer is going through a rebranding and one of our target audiences is social media influencers, which The Reel Test may be to some degree. I don't know much about him but I do know he has been laughed off stage on a few forums. So what is an influencer? They're nothing more than glorified salesmen who are self employed and get perks from the companies who manufacture the products he or she is pushing. They either get monetary compensation, free products, a deep discount, or a combination of those. Social media influencer is one of the fastest growing "careers" (if you wanna call it that) due to services like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels. The problem with influencers is they often push a tweaked narrative in order to generate sales. Their job is to make you build an emotional connection to the product. People emotionally invested in something are much, much more inclined to purchase it. At some point it may even become an impulse buy because emotion got the best of you. As it may be, most of the more recent fishing related YouTube channels are influencers.

Speaking of made in Japan, this guy showed up yesterday. Unfortunately, we're going to be in a deep freeze for the rest of the month so I probably won't get to use it for at least a couple of months.

As strange as it sounds, I don't. I choose my leaders according to two criteria; water clarity and structure. I really only use fluorocarbon in gin clear water and step up to the 8lb in the presence of larger rocks, fallen trees, logjams, and root wads. In stained waters, I'll run the mono. For instance, the Black River in Northeast Michigan has a high amount of tannins, making the water a dark tea color. That's how the river got its name. I typically run my drag between 1 and 2lb, measured with a spring scale. This is my textbook example of where I run 8lb fluorocarbon; the upper Jordan River in Northwest Michigan. Make note of all of the fallen cedar trees. The last couple weeks of September I often hit that area for coho salmon since it closes to fishing at the end of the month. That's just a two week window to catch fresh silver fish. There are also huge browns on the prowl as well. Those cohos like to peel drag and lose you in the wood.

My go-to leaders right now are Varivas fluorocarbon and Maxima Ultragreen mono. As far as Maxima goes, the leader material is a stiffer formula than what's used in the filler spools, some manufacturers use the same stuff and upcharge for the leader spool. I keep the 4, 5, and 6lb Maxima leader spools in my pack and 6 and 8lb Varivas. The diameter of the 6lb Maxima leader is a hair less than JDM 8lb mono. 0.229mm vs 0.235mm, so it's probably breaking somewhere between 7 and 8lb.

It does. With esox species, it isn't the teeth that breaks the leader, it's those razor sharp gill plates. When I used to target pike specifically many years ago, I'd run a 20-30lb mono leader which was about the strength of the Power Pro I used then. The pike I was catching usually ranged from hammer handles up into the middle 30" range. On trips to Northern Canada, I'd run a 50lb leader because those pike are absolute monsters, often getting near the size of muskies. Where muskies are present, the pike tend to be on the smaller side. Speaking of, the guys by me fishing for big musky often run an 80 to 100lb fluorocarbon leader. These days I usually run no bigger than an 8lb leader. The only exception is in woody rivers, I'll go to 10 or even 12lb on occasion so I have a lesser chance of paying tribute to the logjam gods.

Precisely. Japanese consumers have an eye for quality, unlike Westerners who have an eye for quantity. While most famous Western fishing brands have been relegated to nothing more than brand names with OEMs providing both design and manufacturing, Japan is much different. If a business is working and earning good reputation, they leave it be and do what it does best. Western companies are much more concerned about the bottom line and use a plethora of cost cutting measures to the eventual demise of the company. The example I like to use with how Japan treats its own companies is McIntosh Labs, the famous American audio manufacturer. They were bought by Clarion, a Japanese company in 1990 and many workers thought for sure the buildings were going to close and everything off-shored. What did Clarion do? Absolutely nothing. They let McIntosh Labs operate independently because they knew the company was very highly regarded. Why fix what isn't broken? 20 years ago McIntosh Labs was bought by H&M Holdings, a Japanese investment company that specializes in audio and visual equipment. Who wants to guess what D&M did to McIntosh? If you guess nothing, you are correct. That's the Japanese way of doing business. Heck, ABU only got into the situation it is now because Pure Fishing took over ABU distribution in Japan when Olympic went bankrupt 25 years ago. The best contemporary Swedish made and designed reels all hail from the Olympic era.

I don't require it, but I highly prefer it with brand new models.

I just ordered one as well, should have it Monday. I'm going to spool it with #1.5 YGK and run a Varivas 8lb fluorocarbon leader. My plan is to run it on my Palms Egeria EFVC-53L+ and take it bushwhacking for big fish.

And I will third it. YGK really is fantastic line and very well made. Yeah, you're looking at $25 for a 200m spool or $35 for 300m, but you get what you pay for. Before I used YGK I used Berkley X9, Power Pro, 832, and J Braid. Each of them were ok lines, but had their issues. J Braid was great on spinners, baitcasters not so much. 832 is downright lamp cord. I feel they underrate their line to give it the illusion that "it's strong for its rating". Power Pro is ok, but it's a very rough line. Much more so than other 4 carriers I've tried. In thin diameter it likes to dig in. Berkley X9 is good on casting reels, not so much on spinning. Other than that, Berkley too is way off on their measurements. They say the 6lb is 0.08mm, and to the eye it's marginally thicker than #0.8 (0.148mm) YGK. I only use USM lines if I'm in a pinch these days.

It's definitely a jigging reel. I think the shops put it in the baitcast category because it definitely doesn't look like other jigging reels. There's also the Ryoga BJ, which is set up in a similar manner.

Calcutta Conquest SE should work well for you, or a 100 if you need the line capacity.

I have friends I've fished with for many years that still swear off baitcast reels as backlash machines, and it always goes back to their first experience with a bargain bin model from K-Mart back in the 80s and 90s.

As long as you don't feel any bumps or grinding in the rotation, you're A-OK. Mechanical noise is normal.

I did that a couple years ago. I'm at 2 Calcutta Conquests, 4 small Ambassadeurs, and 3 Millionaires.