Bigbox99

Used reels from Japanese market is the big brain play.

Whatever you use, just make sure to cut and re-tie a few times throughout the trip. The casting of the bait alone can beat up the line and begin to weaken it at the knot.

Looks like an SV Boost knock off. The Ray's spools are already a knock off of the Daiwa Air spools which are a knock off and/or collaboration with KTF. This spool is the 1st aliexpress spool I have seen with the dual rate spring similar to what is found in SV Boost spools. I'm all for it if it means knock off SV Boost spools can be found for Daiwa platforms that haven't or may never receive SV Boost spools.

Daiwa or Daiwa US? Daiwa US prices have been bonkers for years.

Braking profile is #1. If I want a control focused braking profile for skipping or casting glide baits on heavy non braid then I'm going with a reel with a braking profile that matches. If I want distance with compact long casting baits then I am going with a reel with a braking profile that is very free at the end of the cast and let's the bait sail away. I'm not going to use the wrong reel for the job and fight against a free casting reel by using spool tension to slow the spool down or fight against a control focused reel by going super low on the brake settings trying to free up the bait at the end of the cast and fight inconsistent braking behavior. Generally speaking, control = some sort of Daiwa and distance = Shimano SVS, other centrifugal or Daiwa with a distance tuned braking profile.

I think you got that backwards. Rod movement when working a bait or setting the hook mostly uses large muscle groups and some fine motor skills in the wrist but it is the reel with the grasping of the knobs with the thumb and index finger and rapid wrist rotations that is the most demanding of fine motor skills. You can also argue that the thumbing of the spool and grasping of the rod by the handle and trigger also uses fine motor skills and that is why people cast with their dominant hand. I use both left and right handed reels and everytime I use my right handed reels I notice how much more rapidly and smoothly I can turn the handle burning back in a bait. It feels like 2nd nature because it is. I'm right handed and learned right handed reels 1st. I use my right handed reels for baits that turning the handle is the primary means of movement and use left handed reels for punching/flipping, pitching, short target casting and bottom contact baits in a semi palming grip. When I 1st learned to use a left hand reel it was very unnatural because I had to unlearn spinning reel developed fine motor skills that wanted my hand to make an oval while my forearm moved to form a circle. With baitcast reels your forearm is stationary while the hande rotates in a circle to turn the handle. This lead to me making a herky jerky handle turn but I re-taught that hand and now it's nearly as good as the right. It's s little slower and doesn't have the reel cranking endurance of the right but that will go away over time with use, or maybe not since I don't use that hand for moving baits.

They appear to be solid reels with a unique machine bar stock construction but they haven't been around very long. My concern is if Bates or the OEM Loongze stays in operation. If Bates is sold or no longer affiliated with Loongze and they move to a different OEM then how will your get parts for your Bates branded Loongze in the US? In other markets Loongze sells the Bates Hundo as a Loongze reel. The reel below is from a European angler on another forum. I'd need to see the OEM have some presence and staying power in the US to buy a reel from them. If I'm spending $300+ I want to be able to maintain it for 10+ years and replace gear sets when they start to get geary ect. If the reel feels like a coffee grinder on year 3 I don't want to find out "sorry we no longer support that model" because Bates was sold, the founder retired a millionare, and some jackoff bought the company and ended the contracts with Loongze to cut costs and is now running the brand into the ground with generic plastic reels squeezing every last drop out of whatever is left out of the Bates name. https://www.loongzefishing.com/

Yeah, Daiwa has used that a few tines. The TD-Z Type R, TD-Z Type R+, Zillion Type R, Tatula Type R and Tatula CT Type R. Not comprehensive, but some reviews on some of the reels. Anyways, the main difference on the Tatula Type R I have was that the 8:1 gear ratio was exclusive to the Type R, it has a lighter weight spool, unique frame milling, unique glitter paint and a Zaion drag star. https://www.tackletour.com/reviewenthusiastshootoutantarestyper.html https://www.tackletour.com/reviewdaiwazilliontyper.html https://www.tackletour.com/reviewdaiwatattyper.html

Under $60: Worm, jig, punch: Seasir Salminus Moving baits: Seasir Megacuda/Leydun G6 Big bait: Johncoo Ares Under $150: Small reel: Tatula 80, SLX MGL Normal sized reel: Tatula 100, Curado 150MGL, BPS JM Carbonlite Skipping: Fuego SV Under $200: Small reels: Curado 70 MGL, Tatula 70 SV Normal sized reel: Tatula Elites, Curado 150 MGL Bigger bait reels: Tatula 150/200, Tatula 300. Curado 200M when it gets this cheap $200 and above: Zillions, Bantam, Met, Enthusiast tier: Conquest, Ryoga, Steez, Z2020/Z200, Antares, Megabass reels, custom BFS tuned Pixy/Alphas, Alde mg7/50es/1000xt, custom painted Daiwa/Shimano reels, perfectly tuned and dressed up excellent condition examples of old Daiwas and Shimanos with hard to find and or crazy expensive parts.

I respect the 16 Zillion SV TW and the Tatula CT. The Tatula CT especially because it's a narrow frame version of the OG Tatula platform and shares many of the same parts. It's a reel you can buy and be able to find new and used parts forever to keep them going plus they have a ton of aftermarket parts like spools and what not to transform the reel into whatever you want. A lot of this also applies to the Zillion. My 17 Tatula SV and other Tatulas. I have a Zillion SV TW that I got for like $70 shipped from Japan that I bought for parts. I wanted the spool, spool tension knob, red lock plate, handle crank shaft, knobs, shiny thumb bar and gold TW from it. The spool alone used retail at the time was what I paid for the complete working reel. I'm happy that these exist on the used Japanese market. The bad about the 16 Zillion SV TW is that it's based on a modified Tatula platform. Its a case of trickling up a lowerer end platform rather than making a new clean sheet design and that comes across as low effort like the Curado G. There really isnt an argument other than "I don't like this" or "tatula bad". You do have the legit complaint about the reel ergonomics. The Tatula CT has very tall frame for a 34mm reel because the frame was designed to accept the side plates from the 36mm OG Tatula platform. If you look at a Tatula CT or Zillion SV TW you will notice that the top of the frame above the spool is tall and slopes down to the spool instead of flattening out on top near the spool. This is to accommodate the larger side plates the reel shares with wide spool Tatula. It's a minor thing but it definitely palms like a 36mm reel in height. The reel is also kind of long especially for a TWS reel but again, that is the fault of it being a narrow spool version of the OG Tatula. Also there are these weird ridges on the nose plate of the reel that feel odd when wrapping your fingers around the front of the reel when palming with 3 fingers in front of the trigger. Not to mention the mag dial isn't recessed properly and can be turned or rub your finger raw with extended use. Again, these are all faults of the OG Tatula carried over into the narrow frame version. It's nitpicky stuff and doesn't bother me at all but for some people this can be a deal breaker This clean sheet design Seasir reels nails 36mm spool ergonomics IMO. I should probably explain the parts Zillion. The T3 MX has the spool, drag star and spool tension knob. The Tatula Type R has the red lock plate and handle shaft which is a short shaft with the flush style nut (it looks cool is why). The Tatula SV above has the knobs.

They won't be be as long as your expectations are realistic. There will be some nitpicky things like the incredible smoothness under load of Daiwa hyperdirve gears, the ease of skipping with an SV spool and free braking profile at the end of the cast Shimano SVS and other centrifugal reels that you may not find with some reels depending on what you buy. You need to start somewhere and you won't know what your preferences even are in a reel let alone what you would be missing by using x in place of y. Just buy some and have fun. I did that recently with my $248 gravel bike. I wanted a gravel bike and never had a steel bike so I got this rebadged Kent called a Giordano for cheap on clearance. I have a bunch of old rail lines converted into crushed limestone gravel trails near me including a trail head a half mile from work so I wanted something to ride when I wasn't on my MTB and a type of riding that was lower intensity and longer duration than the single track MTB trails I have. Something I can go ride in my work clothes and boots to get my heart reat up a bit. The gravel bike shaped onject came with Microshift R8, some prowheel chineasium 34T/50T cranks and external BB, 11-28Y cassette, cheap 700c wheels and 40mm CST tires. It was actually pretty decent for $248. After adding some parts to make it more to my liking it has some cheap aftermarket tubless 27.5 wheels, 2.2 Race Kings, 9 speed Microshift sword 1x, 11-46T cassette and a 46T crank. While I like it, it is not worth what I have into it since there is no market for no name bikes like this. You'll see this in the fishing reel market too where if it is not a Shimnao, Daiwa, Abu or Lews its hardly worth anything.

For anyone confused on the graphite fiber filled polymer vs carbon fiber thing, think of it like this: I like the engineered wood sheets analogy. Imagine is we just called plywood, chipboard and MDF all "plywood". That's what we do with graphite filled polymer fishing reels. We call them "graphite" or "carbon fiber" reels. When we think of carbon fiber object we imagine layers of carbon cloth sandwiched together and impregnated with resin and formed into an object. This is the 1st thing people think of as that is how most carbon fiber objects we use are made. For years I have seen people on this very board come out and explain how great ABS plastic pellets with 30 nano meter long graphite dust mixed in are as a reel material because airplane wings and bike frames as if they are somehow related or made from the same material. It is like if someone came out and defended MDF as a material because "houses are made out of plywood".

Plastic is commonly used in fishing reels and rods. Most rod reel seats are plastic as are the side plates of many reels and some of the frames as well. There are also little plastic parts inside reels such as level wind gears, clutch parts and pinion yokes. The material is fine for these applications. For my money I prefer aluminum and machined and anodized bar stock on the high end but I'll never say that the material is insufficient for a bass reel. It gets the job done.

Plastic with carbon fiber dust mixed in is plastic with carbon fiber bust mixed in. It doesn't deserve to be called carbon fiber because it isn't and its properties are that of the plastic polymer that dust is encapsulated within. See the video below for some comparisons of cast carbon fiber parts. The graphite fiber blended polymer used in fishing reels is the same as the Onyx material tested. We have allowed "reels made from graphite fiber filled polymer" to be shorthand referred to as "graphite reels" and further micegenation of this has turned that into "carbon fiber reels" which is highly misleading. Also, these are the same reel.

That's the TD Zillion Hyper Long Cast. You only want that one if you are going to be using braid and casting baits that like to long bomb. You buy that one because you know what it is and want that behavior. You don't buy it and then spool it with stiff fluoro and then cast normal baits. It will be backlash prone. It has a super stiff spring and a short inductor on the spool. There have also been TWS Zillion HLCs and a Steez A HLC in recent years.

I highly doubt this is true. From what I have seen recently Okuma is using china reels and was using Banax in the past. Kastking has was using Trulinoya for their reels then switched to whatever they are using now. Both Kastking and Okuma have the same plastic reel from the same OEM in their lineup. Just go look at the Kastking Ryoal Legend II and Okuma Halogen. They're the same reel. I have also seen that platform all over Amazon and Aliexpress for cheap and even own both a plastic frame and alumimum frame version of it.

TD Zillion, Zillion TWS (aka Tatzillion), Zillion TW SV and the modern Zillion. The TD Zillion was repalced with a t-wing Zillion based on the Tatula platform and that was replaced by a TW SV Zillion based on the narrow frame Tatula CT platform with the wide spool Tatula based Zillion surviving as the USDM Zillion HD. https://www.tackletour.com/reviewdaiwazilliontws.html There are also TD Zillions that aren't called Zillions such as the Megabass IP, Deps reels and Daiwa SV103. Modern wide spool Tatula based Zillion USDM Zillion HD. The Tatzillions get hate for being a lower end platform recycled but they are solid reels and I like the 36mm wide spool for HD applications and big diameter line.

Pretty much this. I'll also add the difficulty in getting parts for long term ownership of the reel. I have no problem getting parts to service my 10+ year old Daiwas but this can be harder for rebrand reels when you don't even know who actually made it let alone what model it actually is and brand on the outside is basically [your name here] and is of no use. There are a number of old BPS Doyos on this site still ticking so I know it's possible to track down parts or raid parts reels but some of these brands like Kastking changed manufacturers and even BPS has used multiple manufacturers at the same time. It's hard to maintain something when you don't know what you actually have.

That reel sounds terrible in that video. What is that guy on about? "wow it's so smooth, the handle spins so easily *rasp rasp rasp rasp*"

The visibility thing is a real issue. In the private lake I fish they limit kayaks to no wake zones only and I think this is a smart practice so I enforce it on myself on other public lakes. That means I have to hug the shore to get anywhere but it's safer than taking a straight line across the lake. I do not practice this on no wake or similar electric only type bodies of wager since there aren't boats on plane to worry about. The advantages of a kayak off the top of my head: Easy to transport by one person car topping. My bass boat is a bass boat and therfore a big thing to move around. I can't just take it to work to go fish after work for a few hours. There is nowhere to park my truck and boat. Even my pond prowler is the heaviest thing I care to lift and shove into the back of a pickup on 35s on a semi regular basis. The kayak is just so much easier. Can deploy the thing nearly anywhere and be taken down trails on a cart ect to access water not normally accessible by boat Human powered. No need for a motor and in some cases, this offers greater endurance. I can stay out longer with my kayak and paddle than with one battery and my pond prowler with a trolling motor Greater mobility in shallow weedy water. I can paddle and slide over weed mats that wouldn't be able to take my boats through. No registration. Better suited for quick fishing trips with little time. Sometimes I only go out for 2 hours on a whim and it's easy to grab the kayak and drive 5 min to the lake throw it in and off I go vs all the nonsense of my boat. If I'm taking my 19 foot glass boat by myself, waiting in line at the ramp, getting the outboard to stay running, going to courtesy dock, drive back to parkign lot, going back down to the boat, doing all that again in reverse and dealing with trying to drag that barge back up the trailer with a crank then it's going to be all day deal. I'm not doing all that nonsense for anything less than 6 hours on the water. Obviously, adding a motor and making the kayak so heavy it has to be trailered defeat some of this but people like doing this. I personally think they would be better suited with a small fishing boat.

Yes. Same with normal baitcast reels. That old belief that you cant get a vertical fall stems from people using spool tension to get a slow drop from the bait and the line being yanked tight between the bait and rod throughout the cast. When the bait hits the water there isnt enough slack line to allow the bait to fall vertically so the bait pendulums back at you. All my baitcast reel casts have a slack line sitting in coils on the water including skip casts because I don't use spool tension on any reel I own and I get vertical bait falls as well as back glides on baits when skipping docks.

That's a good point. With a reel this tiny I think you run the risk of your palming fingers interfering with the rotating drag star and handle. The small size also limits tooth count on the main gear which negatively affects IPT along with the miniscule 24mm spool diameter. I want to say that this reel is too small and at the absolute limit but i think others in years past have said that about reels we now consider normal sized or even a bit big.

Bass fishing isn't serious buisnness. We're not running a fishing trolly here. This hobby isnt our livelyhoods. We are using a rod and reel with artifical bait to catch and then throw back fish. There is no right way to use fake bait to catch real fish and then throw them back. We do this as a leisure activity and I am a firm believer that you should do fishing things that you find enjoyable as long as it isn't causing harm to yourself and others. If baitcast reels make your fishing experience less enjoyable then don't use them.

A stream fishing channel I watch has got a video on the elves reel. It's super tiny with a light weight spool. I notice that he doesn't palm his fishing reels and just sort of rests his thumb on the back of the reel. I wonder if a lot of left handed reel users are doing this and this is the reason for the recent demand spike for small reels? https://youtu.be/4Al9gyzLr3M?si=sG7ZZeCneljjp-ze

Any alumimum frame and handle side plate reel. I'd probably go with a Zillion HD or Bantam if buying new. If I had to pick from what I already have then my Zillion HD, TD Zillions (megabass IP), 1st gen Ryoga (LIN10), Lexa 300, Engetsu 100 and Tatula 80 would be up for the task. All are aluminum frame and side plate reels with 90+ mm handles with power knobs. The Lexa for huge baits and large line, the Zillions for all around and the Tatula 80 or Engetsu 100 for when I needed a lighter bait presentation or wanted a smaller reel and could get away with it. TT did a few reel reviews where they fished the Amazon. The old TD Zillion did great but the Zaion carbon fiber blended resin (plastic blended with carbon dust) survived but had some frame flexing that caused braid to groove the reel frame. https://www.tackletour.com/reviewdaiwazilliontyper.html https://www.tackletour.com/reviewdaiwat3ballistic.html