abu garcia winch

[fishinjim]

with yesterdays indian summer, i walked the two blocks down to the delaware river to try out my new cranking combo and sacrifice a couple of lures... i'm pretty darn pleased with it.  there was a thread on another board asking about this reel and i put a little review on there.
heres a cut'n paste...


finally, with some decent weather.....

... i had a chance to get out today and give this reel a whirl.

spooled it up with some 10lb yozuri ultra soft, put it on top of CRC-C72MH shimano crucial crankbait rod, tied on a dd22, put a couple other cranks in my pocket, and walked down to the now ice-less delaware river.

brakes came from the factory with two pins out and i left them like that. btw, it is very easy to take off the side plate and adjust the brakes.

for my first cast, i adjusted the tension knob so that the dd22 barely dropped when the spool was free. leisurely made a roll cast and the bait went about twice as far as i anticipated with no hint of the line loosening from the spool while the lure was in flight.
wow.
proceeded to loosen the tension knob in between casts until it was totally free.
still no problems with line coming off the spool, and geez was i ever getting some good distance. went ahead and popped one of the brake pins back in (now on one pin out only) and still no problems with the line... and that big ole dd22 flew a mile.
couple casts later the dd22 hung up on something about 60 yards out in the water and i had to break it off.

next up... a norman deep little n... the bait i will probably be throwing the most on this set up.
first cast with only one brake pin and no tension gave me some loose line on the spool during the cast. pulled a second brake pin out, put just enough tension on the spool to be noticable, and again... long, no spool issue having, casts!
i was very much loving this set up and made probably around 30 more casts, each cast being trouble free and far flinging.
then, again, duh, a snag and i had to break of my deep little n.

one bait left...
wanted to see how this reel worked with a light bait so i tied on a 1/4oz bomber fat free fry. this is where i thought i'd be running into some problems, but the reel handled this light bait as well as the others with no adjustment needed. only issue i had was not having much accuracy when trying some short roll casts, but that i'll attribute to the rod.

all in all, i couldn't be happier with this reel. i've had two of the revo stx and had a lot of problems getting them set up to the point of being backlash free. unlike the stx, the winch gave me no problems and needed very little tuning.
the only problem i have with the reel is that i like it so much i already want another one. lol.

on a side note...
the rod i mentioned above is new to me as well. gotta say, i am as equally pleased with this rod as i am with the winch reel. will know more once i hook my first fish with this combo, but after todays short outing, i don't think i'll need to be looking for a mid to deep cranking set up for quite a while.

sure am glad old man winter took the day off today.

[bassboogieman]

I tried jumping on a couple over at the "other" board.  One guy had TWO for sale, slightly used (hell they haven't been available that long) for $90/each.  Post lasted about 5 minutes before they were gone.  I'd have taken them both and resold them to YOU for $125/each and you probably would have THANKED ME PERFUSELY!  :grin:
Good review BTW, those REVO reels really do cast a bait a long way.  I had similiar problems as you mention with the STX which is why I didn't replace my Pfluegers.  Those REVO's are so free spooling, if you don't get them set right you can backlash them in no time, especially with lighter baits.

[fishinjim]

One guy had TWO for sale, slightly used (hell they haven't been available that long) for $90/each.  Post lasted about 5 minutes before they were gone.  I'd have taken them both and resold them to YOU for $125/each and you probably would have THANKED ME PERFUSELY!  :grin:

heck ya i would have thanked ya.
i was psyched to get mine for about $150 off ebay.

[fishaddict1426]

Professionals like myself can use walmart specails and be just as happy.  :grin: come on, you know im pro :wink: