New Skeet Reels and Rods
Posted by Jason Sealock on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 @ 02:29 PM
Reels
The first person we ran into this morning was Skeet Reese in the Wright & McGill booth. We talked reels first. We picked up the spinning reel and it felt like quality in your hand. It's got a sleek design, and it has feels solid and smooth. The oversized handle is a blessing.
"I love power everything," Reese said. "I like to blue water fish and I borrowed this big handle from the saltwater side. But it gives you a big handle to grab when you really want to set the hook on a fish. With high speed reels what you generally lose is torque and power, but with this oversized handle and extra long shank on the handle, you get a lot of that back."
The drag felt real smooth and the balance of the reel was obvious.
On the baitcasting side, the first thing we did was pop the cover off the side and look at the braking system. The Wright & McGill reels employ a real unique system for setting the braking. Along with the clickable tension knob on the outside, there is a ring on the inside that you can adjust the brakes even more by holding the spool and turning the ring from 1 to 6.
The baitcaster is 10 ball bearings, brass gears, centrifugal braking system and it comes in either 6.2:1 or 7:1 gear ratios. Reese also hinted that a 5:1 reel was coming soon for cranking power.
"I'm really proud of these reels," Reese said. "I'll put them up against any reel out there. We designed a premium product at an affordable price. I've been waiting for months for this day to get here and now I couldn't be happier. I've used them 4 to 5 months tweaking them and I used them in my last few Bassmaster Elite Series events with great success."
The reels will be $99 and should hit the market in about 30 days. So look for them in your tackle stores or online at Tackle Warehouse mid August.
Rods
The new Honeycomb rods are light, durable, cosmetically they look good with the thinner blanks and some added elements around the grip.
"Honeycomb takes all the weight out of the rod," Reese said. "It's still very durable but it's lighter. And the micro guides are amazing. I don't understand how it works, but you can cast further with microguides. I've proven it to myself. I've been using the big worm/football jig rod and the heavy cover rod a lot in the last few events of the season. I'm so happy with how these rods perform."