bulldog1935

@Mjmj While gearing has always been Shimano's best thing, I'll have to agree Daiwa is ahead on spool and spindle design, and non-linear casting brake that doesn't need a chip.

Asian Portal website can be tedious to plod through and find their inventory - look for the yellow tags, those are items in stock. Their search function is terrible, certainly because of language barrier. Find the reel style (baitcasting, spinning), find the manufacturer, and go through their listings by price-range looking for the yellow stock tags. Newer listings show up on the early pages, and they may have odd inventory on deeper pages. The prices listed on their website are in US dollars, but they bill JPY instead from their internal inventory price, so your paypal invoice may be different from their website-listed dollar amount - this is because the listed amount is always fixed on the JPY conversion the day they listed the item on their website. My first purchase was a Vanquish, and I ended up paying 10% less than the price they had listed, making it an extraordinary buy. I bought two Stradics from them for a relative song. Most recently, I bought a Steez, and my invoice came in 5% higher - still a great deal, and their gratis FedEx on $100 order is always a great deal. I assembled one small order with them that totaled $110 in their listed prices, but didn't clear the free shipping requirement in that day's actual exchange rate, until I found one more small item to add. Yes, I've bought 4 reels from them, and more than that in small parts and lines orders. Buying from Japan is most always a good deal when the dollar is more than 100 JPY, and Asian Portal discounts more than most vendors. I've been shopping in Japan for 20 years, since you had to use a broker to overcome language and their domestic banking laws. Asian Portal communication is not great, but they are totally reliable, and I get shipping notification from my FedEx log-in. FedEx is also the very best courier from Japan, flying non-stop from Sennan-Shi to Memphis. The current national holiday closes everything through May 5 - they'll be open next Thursday.

There's a difference between reels made on the Taiwan line and more expensive models bench-assembled in Japan. In Taiwan, they take parts out of the bin, assemble the reel and send the reel down the line. On the Japan benches, they parts-match to improve smoothness - sort and pair parts that work better together. Part of what you pay for in higher grades. Not questioning the lube, but there's a randomness in manufacturing that could affect what you're feeling. I always use the example of my Vanquish and Stradics. Without the Vanquish, would never notice the difference, but with both together, the extra smoothness of the Vanquish is striking.

Actually, you can set the South Bend 1131A so absolutely no thumb is needed to brake or stop the reel once you release it to cast. The knob on the side adjusts the stand-off of a wool pad to the spool - when the bail drops, the pad is moved by spring tension into the spool. You also have the spindle tension adjustment - between the two, you can dial it perfectly. It doesn't cast a long way. Here's the SB reel matched with a SB Cross DoubleBilt cane bait rod. The reel is a model 12, the year it was introduced - 1912 -the rod is a bit younger, but not by much. The SB ABL patent continued, matched with Marhoff LW reels built by Shakespeare for SB well after the war. @Linewinder I never said the SB ABL was good, just said it worked, and it does, casting 3/8 oz and more. The diminutive Shakespeare 1740 Tournament, on the other hand, is very good, excellent with light weights - I have 4-lb silk line on it - and yes, requires proper thumb to make it work. What you can't see with it lined is it has an alloy spool - the only aluminum prewar bait spool - and a balsa arbor, making it very BFS-like. The first centrifugal brake patent, Redifor, 1915, also works too well and costs too much distance - Pretty reel, though. I talk about all these reels in more detail here You guys like the old stuff? - Fishing Rods, Reels, Line, and Knots - Bass Fishing Forums (bassresource.com) somewhere on the thread I come out and state you'l get a lot better with your modern reel if you learn how to cast a 100-y-o NLW.

won't pass up the obvious dumb question here - have you checked the spool drag setting? After that, next step is identifying the click pattern v. handle rotation - how many times - does it match 1x handle rotation or 1x rotor rotation. If it's the latter, could be anywhere from the pinion gear up through the rotor. A/R bearing would be a good suspect. If it's the former, might want to look at the main gear and main bearing.

There are simple hardness issues where metal contacts resin bosses. The hardest of resins, acetyl, is still softer than aluminum. The resin can change its shape under contact stress - what's called brinnelling when it happens to metal gear teeth - mashing. The TA vid I linked above is talking about sliding wear on the resin "bushing," and both mechanisms can be going on at at the same time, allowing the gear or metal bearing to walk around in the boss that's supposed to pin it. Flexure of the macro structure is an added concern.

An argument that's been going 109 years. The curious thing is why there's an argument. Bait finesse was also here before WWII - this diminutive freespool will fish less than 1/8 oz.

and I was making spiral and pendulum casts with weightless rig on 7' rod and Daiwa Millionaire 40 years ago. Used to PO guides - they'd tell me what was wrong with my cast, and I would double theirs. I always made them look good at the dock, though. Lew's was a big step up.

Night fishing. @Darth-Baiter Especially for fine braid, I would go with the 2000 size Vanford. The combo above with Vanquish C2000S had landed doubles, with redfish on one end.

Before Speed Spool, and the development of newer low profile baitcasters, the level wind moved during the cast, and its motion was taken directly off the spool through the idler gear. That's a braking effect. The reels also had centrifugal brakes - centrifugal brake was Abu's big patent Not to defame or down-rate the importance of thumb in casting, just clarifying facts. If you want to cast a really zippy Abu, try a non-level-wind CT. Tournament casters typically wear a piece of bicycle innertube as a "thumb glove" so they don't burn their thumb.

jerk is a physical measurement - it's the time derivative of acceleration. What causes start-up backlash is the jerk of initial spool movement. It takes more force to start the spool spinning than it does to keep it spinning, and that's what causes start-up overshoot. If you add jerk in your rod motion, you greatly increase the excess force reaction, and no casting brake can overcome it. Force is mass-times-acceleration. By adding jerk in your rod motion, you're essentially increasing the excess force by acceleration-squared.

@cal9323 absolutely - you can solve everything with spindle tension, but get the shortest possible cast. I used to fabricate bronze cap shims for my dad, because he wore through them. (I have strip phosphor bronze around for fabricating springs for antique reels) All the recommendations for smooth acceleration in your cast are spot-on. Any jerk put into a cast is only backlash. The starting point on spindle tension is to barely have over-run when you let your weight drop to the ground. You can set centrifugal brakes much higher than mag brakes without affecting cast distance.

not familiar with the reel, but I am familiar with Lew's brakes. Sounds like you have the bare spool flange with magnets in the palm cap? (Lew's website isn't working today - no photos or videos). You definitely should be able to tighten tension on the spindle cap to solve your problem. If necessary to get spool tension, add bronze shim inside the spindle cap. Linear mag brakes aren't the best at start-up overshoot backlash with heavy casting weights. They do their best job at mid-cast wind backlash. That said, I love my Super Duty with mag brake - it's a very good distance reel with 1/4 to 3/8 oz. I also have Team Pro SP and Tourney Pro with their centrifugal brake.

She built her's pretty tricked out - there are detail photos on this CABE thread. I'm still riding my '74 Raleigh from college, though it's on its 3rd rebuild.

it becomes a question of how far are you willing to go to save weight and save dollars. Are you buying throw away or do do want to fish a dozen years. I always borrow Tackle Advisors observations on the Shimano Nasci - "the smoothest-refined-feeling" reel on the $99 table, Yet the main gear is not supported in a ball bearing - instead, the main gear rides in a plastic "bushing" formed in the plastic side plate.

Marketing has programmed us from a young age to feel good about our purchase choices, and about brand loyalty to "rather fight than switch" There just isn't a best brand. Good thing, there are a lot of good reels out there.

it wouldn't be the frame wearing out as much as shifting within the frame affecting the drive life - alignment issues. Have never owned a plastic-frame baitcaster, but fished through a couple of spinning reels.

A couple of nice 5-1/2-g spoons - the white spoon is gold on the other side. The 5.5-g plug is a hoot - Jackson Bottom Magic - it's only purpose is to make mudballs (I swapped the bronzed hooks for Owner salty). Wish I had it at Estes in Feb when we released 45 redfish, bottom-bouncing anything we could in a tide pass. All to fish on my BFS rig, which I just got into casting shape today. That's a 2 g jighead, and I was consistently casting 90-100'

Comparing the spools, for me, it would be 2000 hands-down. If you're not paying drag, you're breaking line, from the combination of rod leverage and impact load (exactly the purpose of /4 drag set). Difference in drag? There's probably a single carbontex washer in the 2000, and a stack in the 2500. (You can't get more than about 2-1/2 lbs drag from a felt washer) But I've landed king mackerel on old Penn 4400SS with no more than 4 lbs drag - if that much. @AmmoGuy https://www.ebay.com/itm/124106608647?hash=item1ce5549007:g:jncAAOSwyXNaFiHK

how much line do you need? What test? My experience, reels with excess capacity just give you poor line lay and poorer casting than reels with lower spool capacity. Have you ever measured and set a drag to 3 lbs on a spring scale? That's all the drag you need for 12-lb test, and it's whopping.

I would guess they're "selling short" Maybe the rod was not physically in their hands, but in a supplier's warehouse. TD, for example (yes, not TW), separates website inventory by "in stock at TD" and "in stock at our vendors" They will sell you either one, but the latter has to be shipped to them before the can ship it out. The former stock in hand will always ship out the next day. Many of these stores will also buy from each other to fill orders. When I ordered a Crowder rod from TD, Mar '20, I got a call from TD Customer Service they didn't have the stock they listed, and Crowder in Florida was closing doors for 2020. Gave me the choice of refund or let them try to find it. I wanted the rod - they hunted it down from stock somewhere else, kept me posted, and shipped it to me after a month. Delay or not, I thought it was over the top service.

@jimmyjoe That endemic Guadalupe bass hen would have been the state record, except 15 years ago, there were no catch and release records. Because of genetic pollution by introduced smallmouth, applying for a record would have required killing her for a liver biopsy. I released her instead. BTW, that photo is the screen saver on my computer. Caught her at a bat cave vent where an aquifer takes flow from the river. This is the only bass species that can retreat into the aquifers to survive our droughts, and she got to that size eating baby bats that fell in. When I filmed an episode of KT Diaries on our endemic bass, True Texas Bass, I caught a 15" fish and explained to KT this is an endemic bass lunker, and would be the biggest fish we'd see that day. We made up for it the next day, sight-fishing 5-lb largemouth in private water on Hondo Creek - got all the big fish film he needed in 90 minutes. They even got film of bass picking up bottom-bounced flies off the flagstone. btw, geography-wise, I still think our OP is seeing sculpin. There are many species in the big family with very strange anatomy

What you gain with the Excense over Twin Power is lighter magnesium body and rotor v. aluminum. There doesn't appear to be any other differences. A bit more than an ounce lighter in 3000 size. It's the Stella with alloy drive v. stainless steel and titanium. New Model: SHIMANO EXSENCE Renewal - That's the one for game fishing - Japan Fishing and Tackle News (jpfishingtacklenews.com) this article also links to the JP Tackle News press release on the '21 Twin Power

agree on 2000 size reel, probably begin with 10-lb fluorocarbon, since it will be fine and limp enough to give you good casts, with enough backbone for most fishing. I do not recommend braid for starting off. Learn to fish with the mono. Spinning with braid requires a few special efforts, such as good manual bail technique. Without it, wind knots will have you cutting out and throwing away more costly braid.

The Stradic CI4+ was a '16 introduction, based on the '15 Stradic. If you go back in Shimano catalogs, they don't support parts much longer than this. This catalog is already 2 years old They're now working off the '18 Stella - the CI4+ wasn't discontinued as much as it was renamed, Vanford. CI4+ is their tradename for the composite plastic formulation they've used since 2012.