I grew up fishing small trout streams with ultralight spinning gear, but it only took a couple bass fishing trips with my cousin in local ponds to convince me to expand my fishing horizons. I would need bass gear though, and everyone I talked to said I would need a baitcasting outfit. I was a kid without much money, but I took what I got from mowing lawns and doing odd jobs and tried to put something together. I ended up with something cheap and crappy, and I don't even remember the name of the reel. I do remember that it was mostly plastic and I didn't have much success with it. Fast forward a few years and after serving in Desert Storm I had done a lot of growing up, but I hadn't outgrown my love of fishing. I got out of the service, came home and took stock of my fishing tackle. It was time for an upgrade! I ended up trading 3 or 4 cheap rods and reels to a local guy for a Garcia Ambassadeur S3600C and a rod which I have since let go. This fellow is a bit of a horse trader, and I'm sure he felt he got the better of me at the time (late 90's) because the reel didn't work right. It felt like something inside wasn't engaging correctly. Sometimes it would cast and reel, and sometimes it wouldn't. I didn't know what was wrong with it or how to fix it, but Abu Garcia had a good reputation at the time so I sent it back to them with a note explaining the problems I was having. After a while they sent the reel back to me, along with a laundry list of parts they had replaced. I glanced at the bottom of the paper and the repair bill for what they had done to my reel was zero! They fixed it without charging me a dime! I don't know if they considered this a warranty repair or what, but I definitely wasn't the original owner! Anyway, after catching hundreds of fish I am still using that reel today, along with the 4600CL3, the HPSS 5600C (Hank Parker model) and the 6500C3 I later bought. I don't know the state of the company today, but I will always be a fan of Abu Garcia! My three smaller reels are all mounted on excellent Abu Garcia Conolon rods (6' M, 6 1/2' MH, and 7' MH). I just used my 4600CL3 the other night to catch a five pound largemouth. These rods and reels have never let me down and I expect they never will. I'm sure everyone here knows about Ambassadeur reels, but I just felt like sharing my story. Cheers! 

Awesome!

4 minutes ago, bigturtle said:

Awesome!

X2

@El Cheapo Thank You for your service.

A-Jay

Fun story, thanks.

 

Abu Garcia is still in the game, makes great reels

I'm a big fan of the Abu round reels too!

Great story. Thank you for your service and God Bless you @El Cheapo! ?

6 hours ago, georgeyew said:

I'm a big fan of the Abu round reels too!

X2^ 

 

Tom

Thank you for your service and for sharing your personal experience with Abu Garcia. That company doesn't get a lot of love on this forum, but I own 2 baitcast reels and one spinning reel from Abu and like all of them.

They get plenty of love here.  Do a little digging, there's even a thread of guys showing off their souped up, customized Ambassedeurs.

At one point in the '90's, all my baitcasters were 4600c's.  Those are workhorses.  I bought a few of the early versions of the Revo in an attempt to replace the 4600's, but my wallet couldn't sustain the buying spree at those prices. Great reels though.

 

 

29 minutes ago, J Francho said:

They get plenty of love here.  Do a little digging, there's even a thread of guys showing off their souped up, customized Ambassedeurs.

 

Sorry J Francho, didn't mean to ruffle any feathers. The Ambassadeurs may be the most popular Abu reel on the forums, but I meant Abu Garcia in general doesn't get a lot of mentions on the site. Shimano and Daiwa are more likely to be mentioned.

 

Here's some very quick unscientific digging I just did. I searched for keywords in this Fishing Rods, Reels, Line and Knots forum and here are the results:

 

Shimano - 30,322 results

Daiwa - 15,776 results

Quantum - 7,749 results

Abu Garcia - 7,210 results

That sounds about the right ratio.

20 hours ago, MichaelCopeland said:

Great story. Thank you for your service and God Bless you @El Cheapo! ?

Thank you Sir! I got way more out of my time in the military than what I gave, I can tell you that!