Me: Hey, you guys seem to have some great reels.
Them: Gee, thanks. We feel our reels are pretty awesome. Did you see us attach one to a motorcycle?
Me: (cough) Yeah, that was, um, great. Hey, I am running some reel tests simulating normal wear and tear so someone going to Christmas Island can know they can trust your gear.
Them: Testing… um… so, like, what did you have in mind?
Me: Well, I want to attach one to a high speed drill, a bunch of times, like… a whole bunch of times. Then, I want to drop it in sand and put it back on the drill and then drop it in saltwater and put it back on the drill and basically see if the thing breaks. So, what do you say?
Them: HOLD ON Captain Crazypants. No effing way. Who the hell are you, anyway? Ya know, we test these things ourselves and we don’t want you breaking our stuff and then writing bad stuff about us. Didn’t you see the Tesla review thing? We don’t want to go there buddy. How about we pretend you didn’t mention this. Mkay?
Me: Uh… bummer man… bummer.
Yeah, that’s more or less how most of my Reel Testing efforts went. I had a hard time getting a hold of the gear I needed to actually test.
Here’s the thing though… I wasn’t the only guy thinking about this. The folks at Trident Fly Fishing (this is the link with all their results) put together some tests… with like, science and stuff.
I’m a fan of what these guys pulled off. They even forked out some of their own cash to test some of these reels.
The surprises for me came in the form of two reels… first, that Cheeky did so well, tying for 4th… they are new kids on the block, so it is great to see them place so highly alongside established players. Another reel that tied for 4th was the Sage 1880. The 1880 is a $140 reel. That is some good pricing.
The overall winner was the Hatch 7 Plus, and that is not a real shocker. Those that have fished with that reel seem to have found Hatch religion.
I would have liked to have seen some Nautilus reels in there and Galvan too… but this is a pretty solid set of reels. Well done Trident… well done.
From my ill fated reel testing.
