Looking to build a little nicer drop shot setup. i have my eyes set on the Gloomis GL2 Drop shot spinning rod. as far as reel I need some assistance.

 

My current Drop shot set up is my shaky head setup. which is a 7'6" Medium moderate action St Croix with a Shimano Saros

 

all my BC are Abu Garcia. 1) because I would give up a leg to keep my MGX or STX. 2) ABU Garcia does %30 discount for active duty military, so i am a huge advocate of ABU

 

 

How do ABU;s spinning reels hold up or should i go shimano. i was torn between the Revo SX spinning reel or the Shimano Stradic FJ.

 

Any thoughts???

Never used a SX spinning reel but heard a lot of good about them from walleye guys, Stradics are amazing, drag is amazing and still light.

The drag on my Saros is smooth as butter and i know shimano makes a fine product. i have just heard that Abu makes great bait casters and nothing else.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy a GL2, I bet 90% of the people on this forum would agree. For The $200 mark you can get the New Shimano Crucial or the New St Croix Avid X (Both in the ball park of 6'8-6'10 ML/XF or F), as for reel any 1000 sized Shimano will serve you well. My main DS setup is a TBS610MLXF w/ 1000 Saros paired with 10lb Yellow PP and a 6-8lb leader of Invisx - I can haul in big smallies all day.

If you like Dobyn's rods, their 702SF is what I use for dropshotting and I love it.

 

I have it paired with a Lews Team Gold, Its my favorite combo for sure, probably a little biased since dropshotting is my favorite technique. Thats just my 2 cents

get the smallest reel that will balance out on your rod that has a smooth drag. 

 

i'm a big fan of 1000 size stradics.

 

I'll echo what Jezihog said. The GL2 you are interested in will be a let down for its price point. The st. croix avid 69mlxf is under 200$ and will blow the GL2 away. 

 

My DS/SH set up is the Xtreme 69mlxf and a stradic 1000. Love the combo. 

I use a 2000 size daiwa on a fenwick 6'10" mlxf bass rod right now.  I had a 702 lamiglas excel that was good as well.  I am very curious about the new avid-x as i love the regular avids so I might try one of those next.  I like 2000 sized reels even though most bass guys use the 2500 series.  I have found that you can get great deals on the smaller reels.  I picked up a certate 2000 for 225 shipped of the auction site.

I am a shimano man myself as far as reels go....but i have heard great things about the abu garcia revo premier spinning reels

The Revo spinners are ok. You can save a few bucks by looking at Pflueger's (another Pure Fishing brand) models. They have a good bang for the buck.

I've got 3 Revo Premier spinning reels and I absolutely love them. Their drags are amazingly smooth, the line management is excellent, and they're light weight on top of it. Super smooth operation and a joy to fish with. I haven't personally got to use an SX, but I did get the chance to fish with a Revo S and that did a pretty good job as well. I would think the SX would make for a good reel for you.

If you go braid with a leader, you can downsize to a smaller spool.  With straight fluoro, copoly, or mono, I'd look at something equivilent to Shimano's 2500 or Daiwa's 2000 size.  Also, larger spool reels usually have a multi disk drag stack, whereas smaller 1000 series have a simpler drag.  If you plan on using 6# line or less, drag gets important.

 Also, larger spool reels usually have a multi disk drag stack, whereas smaller 1000 series have a simpler drag.  If you plan on using 6# line or less, drag gets important.

 

Can you explain this in depth a little more please - multi disk drag stack vs a simpler & how/why under 6lb drag is more(?) important?

 

Thanks!

Light line, you need more precision with each click of the drag.  The lower the break strength, the lower your margin for error.

 

Here's two schematics.

 

Single felt washer and metal key washer stack: http://fish.shimano.com/media/fishing/SAC/techdocs/en/Spinning/12ST1000FJ_v1_m56577569830789021.pdf

 

Multi stack drag: http://fish.shimano.com/media/fishing/SAC/techdocs/en/Spinning/12ST2500FJ_v1_m56577569830789022.pdf

 

The multi stack drag has a greater range of fine tune adjustment, and less prone to initial stick.