Bigbox99

Fish it that way. None of my Shimanos have any spool tension and are zero adjusters. Also long as you didn't spool on a slinky you should be fine.

The Aliexpress reels also have this sticker in the same location. I think it's a chinease market thing. USDM Daiwa reels are sold on Aliexpress for way cheaper than any US retailer is charging. That reel looks like a reel that was intended for the chinease market but sold on Amazon. You used to only be able to get these on Aliexpress but maybe new old stock is being sold on Amazon? I don't see the Tatula Elite on Aliexpress anymore so maybe it's being phased out in that market. That's been the going rate ($160ish) for years with these on Aliexpress.

The hyper drive gears daiwas are smoother than anything Shimano has but that doesn't mean that they are better reels because of this. And yes they are smoother. We had this autistic thread on TT where a Shimano guy went to quantify exactly how smooth his new Daiwa Zillions were compared to his Metaniums and took readings with an accelerometer strapped to the reels (iphone) and the perceived increase in smoothness of the Zillion registered as less noise on the graph. No surprise to me as someone who owns both. My Shimanos are smooth and so are my non hyper drive Daiwas. My hyper drive Daiwas are on another level smooth. Smooth like turning the handle with the drag backed off smooth but the drag is locked and you are winding with a thumb driven hard onto the spool to press the pinion into the main gear to get as much gear mesh as possible but it just can't be felt. Otherworldly smooth. It makes you think there is something wrong with your drag kind of smooth. The smoothness is great but it's the more well rounded braking profile that makes me prefer Daiwas over the centrifugal Shimanos since I do a lot of close quarters skipping mixed with distance casting with unconditioned stiff plastic lines with no spool tension. Daiwas just work better for me here with smoothness being a niceness thing but not a performance thing.

The hyper drive gears are freakishly smooth.

You can. I don't like the way flouro handles in those diameters I'd try 15 pound Big Game 1st. It's a large diameter plastic line that will fail at over 20 lbs and will far exceed the handling of even line conditioned 20 pound fluoro. If you hate the handling of that then fluoro is a no go. I might actually switch my high end moving bait rig from 16 pound sniper over to 15 pound low vis green Big Game after trying it on my budget rig. For moving baits both are basically the same in visibility per diameter and the BG let's me throw buzzbaits and ploppers on that rod.

I could see them making a premium Curado line out them sort of like they did with the Tranx Curados. Most people seem incable of putting 2 and 2 together and identifying the 200 and 150 as being curado platforms. I could see silver curados with gold accents looking nice but I'm not sure how much appeal that has outside of those that don't like the green and black plastic accents. I think they pulled off the 200 and 150 Tranx because "it's a Tranx!". They could also go the trickle down route and make a cheaper version of the Metanium and Bantam with a cheaper satin black paint exclusive to the US market targeting those that pay full retail on TW.

Loosen your spool tension and leave it that way. Adjust your brakes and you should be good to go.

That the same for every reel I own including reels over 20 years old. You don't need to use that knob for anything more than eliminating side to side play unless something has gone wrong. I only have to use spool tension when I do something profoundly stupid like selecting a fast a free casting reel like a Shimano SVS and then spooling it with a slinky like 20# Sniper that requires lots of spool control at slow spool speeds to tame that the braking system cannot provide. I also have some cheap magnetic reels I am trying out that I run a midge of spool tension as a set and forget to try and get a little more range on the magnetic dial since the brake are on the weaker side.

Yes

I've been doing this with lipless in early spring when the water temps are still ice cold and everything is still dead and brown from winter. For me thats in early April but I'm in the Midwest. I burn and pause a 3/8 oz super spot with a 6 gear reel in super shallow water when the fish move onto these shallow flats to warm up. They'll follow the bait and then sort of run into it and grab it on the pause then become angry dead weight when I reel them in. I imagine this works with deeper tight wobbling cranks too if you are on the fish. I wouldn't want to go out trying to search for deep fish with a deep crank in cold water. If you've been on them all year and know they are there then give it a shot.

They're the basically same reel. The HD is a black Zillion with a power handle and Magforce Z Boost spool with a stronger braking profile to handle bigger baits and/or stiff plastic lines. If I was running 16 pound plus fluorocarbon without conditioner and throwing 3/4 oz and up total weight I would want the HD and if I was throwing lighter 16 pound or under fluorocarbon or braid with an emphasis on distance I would opt for the Zillion. I have both. This is assuming you mean the JDM Zillion HD. The USDM is still the old reel with a wide 36mm spool that is more of a high end Tatula 200.

Don't let that sink in.

The Tatula CT was $129 in 2016. It also had the paddle knobs like the Tatula HD reels have.

You can put 8:1 gears in the 200 if you want. I wouldn't and I wouldn't use that reel for frogs. That high capacity spool is best with large diameter plastic line and the fixed inductor Magforce braking is well suited to glide baits and other big awkward baits. For frog fishing you would want something with a faster braking profile like the Tatula 150 or Tatula 100.

I got the vehicle back and it drives as I left it. No CEL, no issues ect. Drives fine. I got a quote for over $11,000 to replace the engine from them and a bill for $188 for the assessment that it has a bad engine. They also let it slip that the engine stalled on them once coming back from the test drive. That is something it has done to me but only recently after having the throttle body drive-by-wire nonsense replaced with a non oem unit when the factory unit failed last year and the non oem thing my local mechanic put in would sometimes stutter or stall on lift off of the throttle. I read this is a common issue with these non oem units and I think they mistook this as a the timing being off despite no codes or issues under acceleration. It seems like the stall spooked them and they decided to pass on the preventaive maintenence and sell me an 11,000 engine upgrade or tick off.

Odd but I would assume it needs new gears and the odd smoothness when upside-down is due to gravity and the worn gears meshing differently then they normally would and encountering a different, less worn, mesh pattern. Replace the gear set and move on or just ignore and fish. Buzzy gears still do the job.

You had your brakes too low for that long cast. Adjust the brake dial.

I have a 2003 F150 5.4 3v with 139k on it. I took to my local dealer to have the cam phasers, timing chain guides ect replaced as preventable maintenence. I don't drive the truck much because I know it's a ticking time bomb with the 5.4 and have seen saving to have the preventaive maintenance done before a failure occurs. It's never had a CEL or a misfire. It's runs great but is a 5.4 3v so I have been babying until I can get it fixed. You don't use things until they break. You prevent failure through maintenence. I take it to the dealer to have this maintenence done and they "do a test" that revs the engine to 5,500 rpm. The truck fails this test because it jumped timing and now they say it needs a new engine. I wouldn't rev a healty 5.4 3v to that RPM because of the engines horrible lubricating system. They rev a 5.4 3v brought into the shop to have cam phasers replaced precisely to prevent such a timing failure and they push it to failure right there on the shop floor? I took it to them to prevent a failure and not to create one. Maybe this normal practice for dealers with these engines to prevent spending a bunch of time tearing it apart only to discover it that it needs a new engine. That if it jumps time then that means that the timing guides are gone and inside the oil pickup. I know for a fact that this engine did have any of the classic signs of missing guides in the form of timing chain slap on start up. It was quiet and only really had slight phaser tick from the passenger side head. It overall seemed to be a case of "not too bad" for one of these engines at that milage and have even been told that by other that heard it run and are familiar with these garbage engines. I don't know what to make of this. If in our conversation this is something they mentioned they would do I would have said absolutely not. Replace my factory defective parts before they fail. Don't abuse the engine and cause a failure but at the same time I can understand why they would want some way to filter out the engines with the timing guides sitting in the pan or oil pickup. You don't want to to do all the work to take off the timing cover only to discover that it needs a new engine on top of all the labor that has already been done. I hope it still driveable so i can limp it to my mechanics shop for a reman engine.

This, but it's actually called low vis green.

A Tatula 150 might be to your liking. Here is my Tatula Type R (same reel as the Tatula 150) and Tatula 80 (same size as the Alphas SV TW). The Tatula is wider and taller. The mag dial can rub your finger raw if you jerk with your pointer finger extended to the rod blank. With this reel you want to wrap that finger under the reel seat or if you palm with only 2 fingers in front of the trigger it's a non issue.

When you set your rod and reel down by placing the butt down and relaxing your grip so that the reel weight rotates the rod and reel so that the reel is on the bottom and then dropping the reel you are effectively placing the reel upside down on the ground and this is how the top of the reel gets all scratched up. Instead, squat down and place the reel and rod on the ground with the reel on top and the rod's trigger on the ground using the handle as a kick stand to keep the reel level and upright.

Stick to the matte finish Tatulas or Zillion HD if you cant baby these reels. The Zillion painted top plastic cover over the frame is prone to scratches and the finish itself highlights these scratches with the silver color over a dark plastic. I always thought the silver should have been an LTD color with the Zillion base color being more like the Zillion HD. Oh, and you'd think that because the top cover is removable with just 4 screws you could order a new one when your reel gets rashed up. Nope. Not even for an exorbitant price. New frame with top cover or no deal from Daiwa.

The only walmart fishing thing I recommend is some of the rods there. Don't buy any of the reels. As far as the ozark trail goes I hear their gravel bike and ridge mountain bike are pretty good for the $.

Yep. I clip the baits to the reels to keep then from draping their hooks onto the adjacent rods and tangling them.