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Best Barbel Reel

Black Prince or De Lux Steve ? i had both at one stage, happy days :) First Mitchell was a 300 , it seemed and was very high tech at the time The clutches on those were the reason the 'finger on the flyer' style of playing fish became so popular however :D
This was the kiddy though,

http://www.reelstown.com/pag_mod_abu/green/abucardinal44xgreen_INTER.htm

I would more than happily use one of those today if i could find a decent one :)
 
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Couldn't afford the expensive ones in those days Simon, mine was a Monarch, and I was jealous of my mate because he had an Elite!
 
After an old centrepin my first hi tech! modern reel was an intrepid envoy, which I bought in about 1962. Wish I still had it - there weren't many barbel in the yorkshire river system then though.
geoff
 
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There were loads of em Geoff ! the Yorkshire Ouse was seen as something of a barbel mecca 50 or 60 years ago producing barbel of a size that were national hot news . Bit different nowadays ...
 
I can,t fault the shimano baitrunners ,they just keep on going I,ve had mine for atleast 15 + years and have,nt really done anything maintanence wise to them an occasional drop of oil every 5 years they,re bullet proof .And I find the runner usefull on those occasions u step away from reach of your rod (when nature calls)to prevent your rod dissapearing into the river (which did happen last season)
 
Ed Green said:
Nobody seems to have mentioned the best engineered reel made!!! The Abu Suveran 4000s.
Not been made for a few years of course but can still be picked up on e-bay, expect to pay £150 upwards for a mint one.
The clutch is unbeleivable, as its built into the middle of the reel, and has no comparison unless you spend about £700 on one of those shimano things.
If you don't beleive me, go onto the american reveiw sites where they take the reels apart and compare every aspect of each reel without favouritism.
Click to expand...
i have a pair of these on hexagraph avon and trotter rods when their not used with 'hamster wheels' lol, also have shimano 4000dl's on shimano technium avon quivers, shimano 5000gte-b's on the fox kevlex barbels, 6000gte-b's on the fox floodwater rods, a cardinal 55 on the bruce and walker mk 4 glass avon, 4 assorted versions of mitchell 300's on the cane mk4 avon, mk4 carp, chapmans 500 deluxe and chapmans 550 and lastly an abu 44 on a fred j taylor roach rod. still trying to work out what fixed spool suits the allcocks wizard so still using a pin there.

for the most part the choice of the reel depends on which rod you choose, i just keep getting rods and having to find a reel that works best with them;)
 
Ed, i have commented many times on how good the Suverans are, i have a pair of 3000's and they are far superior to Shimano's.

They are without doubt one of the best reels i have ever used.
 
Did it sell?

I paid nearly that for each of mine when i bought them, they could not sell them when they first came onto the market as they where very expensive at the time, now it is a different story.
 
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anyone got their hands on a shimano 4000 XT FA yet. Ticks all the boxes, front drag, small, lightish, looks a lovely small to medium river reel, be interested to see how it performs. getting peed off with the clutch on my 5000gteC. Haven't lost a fish as its not that bad, but just not that nice to use as there is considerable room for impovements on the smoothness front. Recently started using an exage 4000 front drag for plugging for bass/touch ledger chubbing and the clutch is so much smoother than my rear drag shimanos, a real eye opener and as a result am now looking for a small shimano front drag baitrunner, am hopeing that this is it, a suped up version of the DL FAs and look so much nicer!
 
with the stupid prices suverans have been fetching on ebay recently i seriously considered selling mine..... but there's nothing on the market close to them for quality, maybe the milenium edition of the shimano stella 4000 or if daiwa did a 3000 sized version of the Basia;):eek: think how much they'd sell that for :rolleyes::(;) .....i'll stick with what i've got:D
 
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