What is the smallest?  I bought a tiny vintage style round reel recently and this got me thinking.  What is the smallest baitcast reel?  As often as people complain about reels being too big there must be some tiny offerings out there.  I found this cheap reel, the Elf 2.0 branded as Cadence on ali.  Just look at it next to an Alphas platform reel.  Its microscopic.  Could you even use a reel this small? 

 

Here is the tiny vintage style round reel I bought next to an Alphas platform reel.  Its the same reel as the Bass Pro Crappie Maxx.  I have ordered a BFS spool and mag brake kit for it just to see what it is like to turn a crappie reel into a reel that can actually cast crappie baits 

Daiwa had a MM Mini series casting reels.

Tom

 

Daiwa also had the Coronet, made to match a shirt-pocket pen-clip telescope rod.  

 

Back in the early 80’s, Ryobi produced a mini baitcaster.  It couldn’t cast worth a darn.

22 hours ago, bulldog1935 said:

Daiwa also had the Coronet, made to match a shirt-pocket pen-clip telescope rod.  

 

One of these?  I saw a video recently of someone turning something similar into an UL caster.  Do you know what that style of reel is called?

 

https://youtu.be/zZ_0xzZrImI?si=2au8ZbwTnRWN3FJd

On 11/18/2025 at 6:06 PM, WRB-2.0 said:

Daiwa had a MM Mini series casting reels.

Tom

 

I just posted this Millionaire Mini MM1000 last week in another thread. 

On 11/18/2025 at 6:48 PM, bulldog1935 said:

Daiwa also had the Coronet, made to match a shirt-pocket pen-clip telescope rod.  

The Coronet was a smelt reel if I remember right.  A friend of mine bought some for ice fishing some years back, still using them.

 

I don't know if this is the smallest, but it's the smallest that I own, Isuzu DD310SSS.  2500C for scale.

 

 

 

@redmeansdistortion

Coronet spool dia. is only 16 mm, spool flanges only 12 mm apart.  

You use the panic button to thumb the spool.  

  

 

 

42 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

@redmeansdistortion

Coronet spool dia. is only 16 mm, spool flanges only 12 mm apart.  

You use the panic button to thumb the spool.  

  

 

 

That is super cool, the newest one is nothing like that.  Would be a lot of fun jigging crappies over brush or gills from the docks.

@Bigbox99 Question did you buy the Elf/Cadence reel? I ask more out of curiosity but also as curiosity got the best of me I’ll be darned if I can find that reel anywhere. If you don’t mind could you pm me or even share the link in this thread as again I’m confused as to why I can’t find it. Thanks in advance.

25 minutes ago, Eric 26 said:

@Bigbox99 Question did you buy the Elf/Cadence reel? I ask more out of curiosity but also as curiosity got the best of me I’ll be darned if I can find that reel anywhere. If you don’t mind could you pm me or even share the link in this thread as again I’m confused as to why I can’t find it. Thanks in advance.

No, I just went to Aliexpress and searched for smallest fishing reel.  My Mingyang w300 and CL25 are as small as I am going for now.  The Elf reel has a 24mm spool so I'd only be interested in the BFS version to see how a spool that diameter diameter behaves but its not cheap enough for me at $70 to buy as a curiosity.

 

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809096037780.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt

@Bigbox99 Thank you for such a quick reply, I will agree with you in that at $70.00 I’m not “that” interested especially as it’s a clearly mass produced reel with I’m sure a few different names. I will say I remember a video from a handful of years ago showing Cadence carrying a version of the “Red” Daiwa C? Moniker it carried version for quite a bit cheaper than then the Daiwa at I believe $60.00 maybe $70.00 vs what was at the time a $99.00 version from Daiwa. Please feel free to correct me if you have more information than I’m currently remembering. Also I for one really appreciate you doing the deep dives in the CDM and I’ll still say I’m glad I grabbed my Piscifun Saex Elite so many years ago.

A stream fishing channel I watch has got a video on the elves reel.  It's super tiny with a light weight spool.  I notice that he doesn't palm his fishing reels and just sort of rests his thumb on the back of the reel.  I wonder if a lot of left handed reel users are doing this and this is the reason for the recent demand spike for small reels? 

 

https://youtu.be/4Al9gyzLr3M?si=sG7ZZeCneljjp-ze

I imagine if you palmed it your right hand fingers would interfere with the ability to wind the handle. I fish left and palm my zillions 99% of the time. The only time I fish like that is rapid fire dock skipping. 

22 hours ago, TNBankFishing said:

I imagine if you palmed it your right hand fingers would interfere with the ability to wind the handle. I fish left and palm my zillions 99% of the time. The only time I fish like that is rapid fire dock skipping. 

That's a good point.  With a reel this tiny I think you run the risk of your palming fingers interfering with the rotating drag star and handle.  The small size also limits tooth count on the main gear which negatively affects IPT along with the miniscule 24mm spool diameter.  I want to say that this reel is too small and at the absolute limit but i think others in years past have said that about reels we now consider normal sized or even a bit big.