[Phoenix]

8 weeks ag, as part of my kayak package, I got 2 ABU Cardinal 174 fishing reels - each was around $160, so I thought a quality fishing reel. At only week 3, with only two trips out - the drag appeared to be a little sticky.

At the end of each trip both reels are washed gently under running water to remove any salt - lightly oiled and greased.

I then used two 20cm sections of plastic pipe to elevate them out of the water to decrease salt water exposure.

Now - after a total of 8 times out - the drag on one is almost totally wrecked and the other close behind.

Took them back to the shop where the assistant said he could see a lot of salt (either he's got better eyes than me or it aint there at all) and agreed with my diagnosis.

He said that he'll send the reels off for servicing (at my cost) so as not to void the warranty. :evil:

I think this is far too early for salt water exposure to have seriously affected the drag, especially considering the maintainace that has gone into these reels. Even the made in china sticker is still on the reel and clear as day, so they can't have been in water that much.

I'm loosing my faith in ABU fast and have decided to replace both reels with Okuma Eclipz EC40 - which is a bait runner type reel (these are around $140) + add a Penn 2000 spin reel ($50) to the arsonal also.

Any thoughts..... :?:

 

[Magicrik]

I dont know about the ABU but ive been looking at the penn 2000plus and i like it alot and there as you said only $50 for Alsports.

 

[RedPhoenix]

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

----

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