Well....I did.



I have a BMP X 250sg & a larger 350, while they are great reels & I still use them every year, the new Curado's just flat blows them up......

C/22

i don't know why everyone passes up on the citica. every bit as good as the curado, but half the price.

however, i'm a daiwa/abu fan, and not likely to change. the old bantams were nice, simple reels but shimano doesn't like staying simple, and the bastages didn't put the direct drive on the 250SG, only the wierdo southpaw model.

The Abu is so much more cost effective and is great for fishing steelies and salmon alike. I use mostly abu and have not had a problem with them. We have went through a few reels but at $75 to 85 a piece rather than $300 you can afford it. It is a lot like the need for simms rather than one of the other just as good half the price waders/vests out there. The fish dont give a crap if you cast with a shimono, abu or whatever and I doubt the $300 calcutta reel will last as long as 4 $75 adu's at the same price. But on the downside, you wont look as cool as all the other cool guys around without the simms and shimono.

Abu Garcia 6000-65000 is all you will ever need, it's all I own easy to rebuild and find parts(do it myself) and their realtively cheap

What about the Diawa Luna's, I've haven't heard much of them being used. I've read reports that they are kick ass reels!

here's my take on the luna, and i'm an abu guy.

if you want to blow $250 on any reel, make it a luna. these reels are all-metal, and tough as hell, and about $100 less than a comparable calcutta TE. silky smooth, and the drag will lay waste to any shimano ever made.

for the last rod i built, i decided to spoil myself a little and the choice was between a custom-built and tuned 70s vintage 5500C ambassadeur, and a luna, and i decided on the luna because i didn't want to wait. besides, it just gives me another reason to build another rod(for when i do buy that custom built abu).

i really don't care to spend 200-300 bucks on a reel, its always fun to get your thumb burned on a hot fish...

I have one Curado and LOTS of the Abu Garcis C3's. I like the lower profile of the curado. I used to own C4's but I got rid of them after several stripped their gears out. The local reel repair place told me that they had had lots in with the same problem and that they felt that the problem was the extra load caused by the 6.5 to 1 gear ratio. I'm guessing that it was a bad choice of gear material, but I wasn't going to have another one fail on me.

I'd take a serious look at the new Calcutta 200-B or 200-GTB's.

They'er a 6:1 calcutta and built just like the 200's and 250's.

I'm running Lami X-96-JC's and Calcutta 200-GTB's. This is a perfect combo IMHO. All aluminum and they 've dropped the reel seat a tab bit lower so your hand rests very naturally on the frame. Perfect reel!