What reel for wade fishing?

[Speedgoat]

Zebco 202.

[stickman]

Lews for me. Long time shimano guy until I tried a lews.

[fishycatfish]

My Curado gave me about 7 good years before I had to start replacing bearings and stuff. GF bought me a Lews Lite for Christmas, I love it, cast great and is way smoother the the Shimano. Either will do you fine, I'd check out the Lews. Mine came from an Ebay store, $179 VS $229 everywhere else.

[muzzlebrake]

My nephew tried my Lews American Hero combo and likes it better than his Curado. Now he grabs it every time we go fishing. Luckily I have two. I have never used his Curado but he says the Lews casts a good bit farther and is smoother overall.

[Flex]

Love the old Shimano stuff. I prefer to use spinning reels for wading and shallow inshore salt.

If I got to fish it enough to justify new stuff I would be buying 13 Fishing reels.

[SaltwaterSlick]

I bought one of the Lews heavy duty with the larger line capacity to try. Haven't fished with it yet, but it sure is smooth. took it and tried it in the pond at my house and it appears to cast very well. I still have 4 of the old Curado Super Free's and ordered a hunert n thirty bucks worth of parts to rework them, but parts are getting harder and harder to find... sure hope this Lews is a good replacement... we'll see...

[Eagle19]

I ended up getting the lews bb1 pro and it is worth every penny!

[be12hunt]

What are your guys thoughts on the H20 lines of reels for saltwater? Anyone currently using on of their reels? How is it holding up compared to your other reels? Thanks in advance.

They hold up for about 30 minutes. Jk but really they don't hold up well. I bought about 4 of them a few years ago as throw down surf fishing reels and they serve their purpose(a reel that you don't really care if it gets dunked or splashed) but they don't handle saltwater well. The upside is you can return them to academy for a new reel.

[SolocamShooter]

Lews is about the best reel out there these days. Super smooth and cast a mile

[glen]

I was a die hard baitcast guy for years. Kids started fishing with me and bought 4 Shimano spinners and when kids were getting more distance than me when they were 6 and 8 years old I started using them more. Now I pull away from the dock with 6 eggbeaters and have no issues with catching big uglies and oversized reds on 2500's when they eat a bait on the flats.

[Mayhem]

What are your guys thoughts on the H20 lines of reels for saltwater? Anyone currently using on of their reels? How is it holding up compared to your other reels? Thanks in advance.

Will not hold up to the salt, I have been down that road.

13 fishing concept C for me.


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[panhandlehunter]

What reel for wade fishing?

What are your guys thoughts on the H20 lines of reels for saltwater? Anyone currently using on of their reels? How is it holding up compared to your other reels? Thanks in advance.

I have 2 of the H20 Manic Inshore and they've held up fine. I use them as back up/surf reels. But I don't think they make them anymore.

[Tx_Wader]

The popularity of fishing reels these days is determined by social media and websites that discuss them. All it takes is a few guys to pile onto one brand and pretty soon that brand is junk and something else is golden.

Happens ever 5 years or so.

In the late 70's and early 80's the Lew's reels were junk but without all the "experts" to tell us this on different websites we were clueless and bought them. Cost us money having to find out ourselves but lesson learned and we went back to what we knew; Ambassadeur and Diawa reels.

Then Shimano came along with their Bantam reels and they were smaller and held up well and a lot of fishermen moved over to the Shimano brand. Ambassadeur came out with a new thumb bar reel, the Ultra Mag and we tried those and a lot of us moved back to Ambassadeur.

These days Lew's makes a really good reel and I would put them even with Shimano in craftsmanship and reliability.

If you have one of each and they are geared the same with the same spool capacity and you are throwing the same weight line and lure in the same conditions neither will outcast the other, but the person who is casting might put it out there a bit further.

So toss all the hype about one casting a mile further it ain't happening.

If you are looking at a Lew's reel check out the Lew's Tournament LITE G Speed Spool SLP series, it's a very nice reel and priced right too. If you're looking at a Shimano take a look at the Chronarch MGL line...sweet reels.

I own a lot of reels and they get used often but I do not own an H2O or a Concept reel.

Good luck!

[ranchdog]

Good points Tx_Wader. But also some manufactures screw up a good thing and that is what starts the bad word of mouth. For example Shimano had the Bantam 250 reels that were awesome for several years, at least back then. Then one year in the 90's (forgot the year) they tried to make them better and screwed them up bad. Academy ended up sending all the Shimano reels back to the factory to change out parts but by then word of mouth trashed the reels and no one wanted them. One day Academy had the reconditioned reels back and was selling them for $39. I bought like 5 of them.

Now fast forward and Shimano is going thru the same thing again with one of their reels. So people are on to Lews until Lews tries to improve and screw up a good thing.

So its all about finding the sweet spot. Just like Ford and the 7.3 engine. I bought the last 7.3 year model in 2002 and the salesman was killing me to buy the new 6.0 engine telling me it was going to be the best diesel ever made ...... boy I am glad I didn't buy that garbage.

Ranchdog

[SaltwaterSlick]

What I just do not understand is when the Shimano Curado reels are still so popular and people are still clambering for parts to keep them going because they are such good reels, why in the world did Shimano quit making them?!! Seems to me that if they were to announce, "the Curado super free is BACK"... they'd sell like hotcakes...