I am a Salt water downrigger fisher and I use 500 Tekotas. The tekotas seem to be very high quality and I love mine. I use a line counter out the back with a deep six so I can let out the same amount of line each tme. Works great. On the down riggers I use 500s without the line counter counter. I didnt like the handle on these reels so I ordered the handle off of the 300 tekotas which I like a lot better. They cost 50 dollars a piece--ouch. All in all I think the tekotas are well worth it.