Hey I’m looking to get a few setups clients as I’m trying to start guiding for pike and river musky. For my true big bait musky rods I have a couple 9ft xxh with okuma komodos on them which are d**n near indestructible. I want to get a couple smaller casting setups for pike and smaller baits, planning on getting a handful of st croix mojo bass 7’10” h swimbait rods as those make the perfect pike/ small musky bait setup. I’m wondering if anyone has experience with either the super duty 300 or the new beast x. I have read good reviews on them but I can’t get real information from my normal musky forum on them. I’m a die hard Shimano guy but I have had some lews reels that I loved, so I would naturally lean more toward the superduty but I’m always open to opinions seeing as I haven’t used either of these reels. I don’t really want to get the smaller Komodo as I think with smaller lures the non disengaging level wind would hurt casting distance too much. The other option is just fork over the cash and get a couple tranx 300’s which I already know I love. If anyone has experience with these reels I would appreciate it, longevity is pretty important to me seeing as I throw a lot of high resistance baits and trophy pike/musky are not easy on reels. Thanks

I’ve had a super duty 300 for about a year, and have loved it so far. It’s a fantastic casting reel that is also very smooth on the retrieve. I can’t speak to longevity however as it isn’t something I use everyday, and I’d assume that guiding would see it used quite a bit more than I use it.