redmeansdistortion

JDM Daiwa Blazon 6'4" L and an Alphas Air TW would be a great combo. I fish a lot of streams and find shorter rods easier to maneuver in those types of conditions. If you're more on a budget, look at the SLX BFS as it's close to $100 cheaper than the Alphas. The exchange rate is crazy good right now so you get a lot for your money. If you like round reels, the Millionaire CT SV and Calcutta Conquest BFS are both right around $320 right now at the usual shops.

What does Momo supply to Daiwa? I know KTF supplies the Air spools for the Alphas platforms with the exception being the original Alphas Air. Air TW, Gekkabijin, Silver Creek ASC, T3 Air, and SS Air are all KTF.

Look for a spool from a modern 5500 C3 or 5600 C4, they are considerably lighter than the spools of their brothers made years back. Abu calls them an anti-distortion spool. They also have a little more line capacity. They come up on eBay often for $25 or less. While you're at it, look for a line guide from the same reel, those too are much lighter than the old ones and can be found cheap on eBay. This is a 5500 I built for salmon fishing.

While they are expensive compared to the non-Daiwa branded spools, the spools from the Gekkabijin and Silver Creek Air TW are direct swaps and work with 1g. The Silver Creek spool is a fixed inductor and the Gekkabijin spool is similar to the Alphas Air TW spool but with a much less aggressive braking profile. The Silver Creek spool uses a heavier braking profile as it was designed for close range stream fishing. With the Gekkabijin, it's tailored more towards distance for fishing rockfish. Those Daiwa made spools can run over $100 depending on where you get them, which makes them a bit more than the Roro and nearly double the price of a Ray's SV.

Maiden trip with the 1600C today, hammered the white bass in the canals of Lake St Clair. I was throwing a little bit of everything, Rapala CD1, 3" Powerbait Minnow on a 1/32 head, some Daiwa Silver Creek 44S sinking minnows, and some Major Craft Eden 50H minnows. I have no need for the mag brake. Zero spool tension and a pair of ultralight weight brake blocks and this thing is a zinger. Not much thumb input required either, I just have to thumb when I want my bait to drop. Now I understand why the 1500C/2500C platform is so admired, this thing is fantastic!

I'm going to try the centrifugal brake first and see how I like it. If I feel I need the mag, then I'm throw it in on the water. I just finished spooling it up.

Finally got around to finishing this one, going to take it out tomorrow morning on the local trout stream and see how she does. I'm planning on fishing it with my 4'10" Major Craft Finetail Stream Glass.

It's very, very tempting to call in well today!

More teeth is typically smoother, but also potentially more noise.

Something to keep in mind. Many older reels have slower gearing and as such may sound less geary due to the lesser number of teeth. I have some newer reels that are in different ratios but the same model, and the higher speed variants do have a little more mechanical noise in the drive train. Just the nature of the beast. More teeth meshing means more noise.

Yep, Zebco wanted them so they could enter the spinning reel market. It kind of makes you wonder what the reels would've evolved into had Zebco left the baitcast reels intact.

Here's a Langley Lurecast I got recently, a customer gave it to me when he picked up his reels. I do plan on using it, just need to clean, lube, and get the proper line. I'm going to weigh the spool when I get it apart so I can get a feel for how low I can actually go with it.

This is what we affectionately refer to as a knuckle buster. There is no clutch or drag, your thumb does it all. When casting, the handle will be spinning, same thing with fighting an angry fish, hence the knuckle buster term. Spool it up with braided dacron. This reel comes from a time before mono and those nylon lines are too springy for the spool. Modern braid might work, but it is very abrasive and may cut into the line guide. The clicker in question isn't for drag purposes, but to be used as an alarm when fishing live bait or to simply keep the spool from rotating during storage. I may be wrong so take what I say with a grain of salt. @bulldog1935 and @WRB are much more well versed in these old dogs than myself.

A future classic for sure, I'm taking mine to the grave lol. There's a reason why most of the Japanese finesse YouTubers love it, because it's one of the best. It won't cast the lightest bait, but man the smoothness of operation and precise tolerances ooze quality in spades. With the current exchange rate, I can't think of any reason to not buy one if anybody has been long on the fence about it.

My latest acquisition, scored it unbelievably cheap on Facebook Marketplace. I think I'm in love with the clutch operation, it's so smooth and satisfying and I have yet to even open it up and do my thing to it. Dare I say the clutch is even better than my Calcutta Conquest BFS and Millionaire CT SV? Yes I said it, it's dang near perfection. Fun fact about this reel, looks and spool aside, it shares very little with the 1500C and shares more of its internal design with the Morrum, especially the brake plate and associated hardware. After consulting with @bulldog1935, I got to ordering parts and will make this a BFS reel. The best part is, after spending $300 on parts, I've still spent far less than what these usually sell for on eBay. On the way I have an Avail 1520R spool, Avail 1520PE mag brake, Hedgehog Air bearings, pinion bearing to replace the bushing, 6.1 gear set, double bearing ported idler gear, lightweight line guide, and a double bearing worm gear. I should have the parts this week, so I'll be posting another pic of it all finished up.

That Zillion would be the bee's knees with a 140mm handle! ?

That's two great fish. Funny thing is, the St Clair River is very fast in the stretch I fish, and a lot of the time I have lead on the line heavier than the bass many here are catching to keep the bait from blowing down stream lol

I use 65lb braid fishing for Lake Sturgeon on the St Clair River, they make long blistering runs and later in the summer the river has a lot of vegetation among the sharp rocks that are always around. The vegetation gets so thick it will float in mats on the river. Never once have I had to lock the drag down. I actually run 8lb of drag with them and have no issue other than a 30 to 60 minute fight hooking one above the slot limit.

The heaviest tackle I normally fish is medium light, have landed many big smallies, sheephead, and 30"+ pike on that stuff. If one lets the drag do its job, things are fine. The heaviest mono I use is 6lb, which is usually used for a leader on a 6lb to 10lb braided main line.

I actually like the Japanese style knobs, but I did put wood knobs on my Millionaire because it looks really classy.

Daysprout owns the tooling that Abu used to make the original Cardinal 3/33, which is why all of the reel feet on them are still stamped Made in Sweden, but bear no serial number. They are through and through an Abu Cardinal, except Daysprout goes the extra step of adding bearings to the main gear shaft, quieting the AR ratchet, and balancing the rotor. I own this model as well as a 3RD CDL, they're fantastic reels but are shelf queens since they are made once every year or two in very limited runs. That said, I fish with my Zebco Cardinal 3 and it's probably one of my smoothest spinning reels I own after I gave it some love.

Heck, even buying a carbon SLP handle and some RCS corks would be about the same price as the USM variant.

The knobs are just the standard S knobs that are common on many Daiwa models, including the USDM Zillion, Tatula, and Steez. You can always swap those out for SLP cork knobs or something aftermarket like Roro or AMO if you want something bigger.

According to Daiwa Japan, it's a 90mm. https://www.daiwa.com/jp/fishing/item/reel/bait_rl/zillion_sv_tw21/index.html

The Cabelas over where I used to live carried it. I've been running that stuff for 20 some odd years, love it. I also buy the leader spools for when I run braid, they're dirt cheap at Fish USA so I stock up whenever I'm buying other stuff. The leader material is stiffer than the bulk spools, so much so you can almost weave a basket from it.