27 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

So maybe, companies are just trying to sell products at prices people will pay?

I think they all do a decent job of matching feature sets and price points to what the market desires.  Sometimes, there's a singleton that doesn't add up.

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

I must have some kind of amazing luck because I enjoy my reels from all these companies.

 

I feel like all of them make incredibly competitive products that will help anglers boat the fish they're after and most of the things we like or dislike is just personal preference.

 

I will say, at 83.50$ per reel, my Daiwa Fuego 8 speed reels are hard to beat for me.  They need a little love out of the box, but I do that with any reel I buy anyway and these feel super nice for the money to me.

 

Lew's and Shimano and Abu make great reels also.  I think that for most businesses, it's difficult to be competitive and scale your production without manufacturing overseas.  Research and coming up with the design is more what the companies do these days.  They have to sell reels and I think they know they'd sell a ton less if they had them made domestically and charged what that would need to cost.

Yeah the "Made in China", designed "in the USA" deal is used by so many products and companies these days.   Lots of high end products too which was surprising at first.

 

Apple stuff for example.   Or to bring it back to the topic, 6th Sense....."Made it China, proudly designed in Texas".   The biggest surprise was when I discovered $300-500+ JDM brand rods made in China but designed in Japan.   It's a brave new world, things have certainly changed.   The consumer has a tougher job but vastly more options than 20 years ago.   

46 minutes ago, J Francho said:

I'd be surprised that any of the rebranded Doyo/Banax/other had any design input other than specifying a bearing grade or main gear material. 

You're probably correct here, especially if the name brand /rebrander dumped or never had an engineering team. That said, I guarantee OEM suppliers like Banax and Doyo would and do allow exclusive-spec reels to be ordered outside of the standard suite of options they offer as long as minimum orders can be met. This happens all the time in other industries where companies with real engineers make an economical choice not to tool-up completely. This benefits the OEM supplier in the long run as exclusives always have an expiration date and these often become part of their standard catalogue afterward, especially if the spec is clever. It's free engineering for them after all. 

That makes perfect sense too. 

On 4/11/2023 at 4:53 PM, roadwarrior said:

Does either company (Doyo or Lews) design and build a proprietary reel ?

 

All Doyo reels are proprietary. And rebraded to its OEM clients, like Lews, Abu Garcia, Daiwa...

 

On 4/13/2023 at 11:45 AM, newapti5 said:

 

Ardent reels used to be made in US, before they moved the production oversea. Also, a bunch of fly reels brands are still made in US. I think.

 

But again, I feel like the correlation between reel quality and manufacturing location is getting weaker and weaker. Daiwa owns factories in different countries, and asks Doyo to make some reels for them. Doyo also has many factories and partners in other countries besides Korea, and they help Doyo make reels as well.  Besides, all the parts insides are from all over the world. It's getting really hard to associate reel quality with locations anymore. 

I'm suprising over how willingly is Daiwa to put its brand in very cheap stuff like the PR100 (Weihai Fishing made).

 

Edit: I was astonished when discovered Okuma is buying and reselling OEM stuff from Banax, a.k.a the Okuma Komodo series.

1 hour ago, ska4fun said:

I'm suprising over how willingly is Daiwa to put its brand in very cheap stuff like the PR100 (Weihai Fishing made).

Me too.  I lost a bit of respect for them after that.  At least shimano is shimano all the way down to the plastic bushing bass rise.  

Okuma used to make rebranded reels for several reel companies/stores. That was actually their pitch when they started selling their brand: "You've probably already been using our reels!"

 

It is a little ironic. 

On 4/10/2023 at 1:35 PM, KP Duty said:

It probably hurt Daiwa a bit when bass pro stores dropped them.

The Cabelas around me still carries Daiwa

My opinion. The race to make the lightest reel has had a negative effect on quality. Todays reels may cast light baits further and require less angler ability but the reels of the 2000s that weighed 8-9 ounces were a better product in my opinion. I could go years without servicing those reels and now I’m taking reels apart several times a year. 

I have two reels from Lew's

First is a spinning reel that locked up and wouldn't turn in 6 months. 

The other is an LFS speed spool that is a great reel, except the eye of the level-wind damages my line.

 

I'm not paying the shipping to return something that's under warranty, and they refuse to send me a level-wind assembly, so I refuse to buy another reel from Lew's.

 

my Shimano and Diawa reels all still work. I don't know if the customer service for either is better than Lew's because I haven't had a reason to find out yet.

On 4/14/2023 at 1:42 PM, Tatulatard said:

At least shimano is shimano all the way down to the plastic bushing bass rise.  

As far as you know. None of us know for sure what goes on inter-industry. Toyotas and GMs built on parallel assembly lines, etc. Businesses do what they need to do or what makes sense financially. From the outside it's all just a guess regardless of what's claimed by "somebody".

3 hours ago, J Francho said:

Okuma used to make rebranded reels for several reel companies/stores. That was actually their pitch when they started selling their brand: "You've probably already been using our reels!"

 

It is a little ironic. 

Completely ironic... They made gear for daiwa and shimano and now sells rebranded, yet superbly built, banax reels.

18 minutes ago, hunterPRO1 said:

Shimano and Diawa reels all still work. I don't know if the customer service for either is better than Lew's because I haven't had a reason to find out yet.

I have. Waits can be stupid long, like several months, for servicing/warranty except for executive services where they're offered.

I will give Shimano a huge nod in the parts department. They have an incredible parts list that makes it stupid easy to purchase what you need. 

1 hour ago, GReb said:

My opinion. The race to make the lightest reel has had a negative effect on quality. Todays reels may cast light baits further and require less angler ability but the reels of the 2000s that weighed 8-9 ounces were a better product in my opinion. I could go years without servicing those reels and now I’m taking reels apart several times a year. 

I feel quality is suffering in all products these days...IMO mainly due to companies looking for the highest margins possible.  I'm on my 3rd microwave in 5 years.  Growing up in the 80's, we had the same inexpensive 2-knob microwave until after I graduated high school.  

2 hours ago, GetFishorDieTryin said:

The Cabelas around me still carries Daiwa

Bass Pro Shop in Little Rock, AR, online and catalog sales still carry Diawa too.

1 minute ago, volzfan59 said:

Bass Pro Shop in Little Rock, AR and the catalog sales still carry Diawa too.

I just popped in to check the in-stock Daiwas at the local Cabelas

Tatula CT

Tatula 100

Tatula SV

Lexa 300

Zillion SV

 

and 8 models of spinning reels.

11 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

I just popped in to check the in-stock Daiwas at the local Cabelas

Tatula CT

Tatula 100

Tatula SV

Lexa 300

Zillion SV

 

and 8 models of spinning reels.

If Diawa is still making the Johnny Morris Signature Series and Platinum Series spinning reels, I would be shocked if BPS stopped  carrying Diawa reels. The store that I worked at stopped carrying Diawa rods. We couldn't give them away.

9 minutes ago, volzfan59 said:

If Diawa is still making the Johnny Morris Signature Series and Platinum Series spinning reels, I would be shocked if BPS stopped  carrying Diawa reels. The store that I worked at stopped carrying Diawa rods. We couldn't give them away.

If you look over Scheels website - specifically at their spinning reels...their 'Scheels Outfitters' brand has "By Daiwa" right there in the description.

On 4/14/2023 at 11:18 AM, ska4fun said:

 

 

I'm suprising over how willingly is Daiwa to put its brand in very cheap stuff like the PR100 (Weihai Fishing made).

Although I’m not familiar with the reel you’re referring to if it’s the clone of the  Daiwa CA80 I for one respectfully disagree with this comment. I would like to believe but have no idea that like PhishLi said Daiwa at least specified the design of the CA80 or picked the design based on their previous knowledge. Another brand that probably never had a engineering department but is in my experience a good reel is Piscifun, I know many on here will scoff but the 3 Carbon X spinning reels I have are fantastic for the price. I’m in no way implying they’re as nice as the Shimano Stradic I recently purchased but are in my opinion not far behind the Miravel I handled at BPS and are every bit as well built as my BPS Carbonlite 2.0 spinning reel which I believe is made by Daiwa. 

On 4/18/2023 at 11:36 AM, Eric 26 said:

Although I’m not familiar with the reel you’re referring to if it’s the clone of the  Daiwa CA80 I for one respectfully disagree with this comment. I would like to believe but have no idea that like PhishLi said Daiwa at least specified the design of the CA80 or picked the design based on their previous knowledge. Another brand that probably never had a engineering department but is in my experience a good reel is Piscifun, I know many on here will scoff but the 3 Carbon X spinning reels I have are fantastic for the price. I’m in no way implying they’re as nice as the Shimano Stradic I recently purchased but are in my opinion not far behind the Miravel I handled at BPS and are every bit as well built as my BPS Carbonlite 2.0 spinning reel which I believe is made by Daiwa. 

 

Daiwa just chose decent reels from doyo, to be sold with its brand. Using Doyo oem reels were somewhat acceptable, but cheap ones? Really?

The PR100 isn't a U.S. market reel, so don't expect anyone here to share your outrage.