Thinking about gamefishing combos. As with our braid and jigs, the no-name game reels we buy are actually made for a giant US fishing tackle company. We send our small orders for 50 reels to the factory. They add our requirement to the huge orders placed by the Americans. We get the benefits of their quality assurance, plus the lower prices that come from large production runs. The 20W is a good example of that tactic. It’s a great reel which has worked really well for us on tuna and sharks. Lever drag, fitted with carbontex drags and Cals’ Drag Grease by Steggs here in Sydney, as each shipment arrives. That makes the drag system both super smooth, and super tough:

2-speed, with low gear of 1.8:1 and high gear of 4.1:1. 2-speed is very handy to shift a tuna that’s circling just under the boat, or a marlin slugging it out down deep.

Weight, 1.8 kilos. It has 8 ball bearings for smooth operation, and a loud ratchet which will send you a foot into the air (as it should!) when a yellowfin picks up a cube. Here’s the reel in operation on a solid mako, listen to that ratchet howl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6np87eb1p8

And yes, we did get that mako to the boat. The reel has solid frame lugs for connecting with a harness, and a rod clamp with ring, if you want to secure it with a lanyard.

The 20W is a perfect match with our 24 kilo bent butt rod. Rod overall length 180mm, short length 125mm

Bent butts are the way to go for game fishing. Ours suits the reel perfectly, responsive with plenty of deep down grunt ,and fitted with a Fuji roller tip at the business end.  The mechanical advantages of a bent butt are well known, another plus is the combo just looks great! The reel is supplied with a rod clamp, and has twelve months warranty:

Bryce writes:

Hi Andrew, thanks for the quick delivery of the pair of lever drag reel/bent butt rod combo’s.  I am impressed with the quality of this reel especially and can’t wait to get out and try it.  We took the kids out off cape Moreton on the Ekka holiday on Wednesday.  Great weather, lots of whales and also picked up a nice little spaniard floating out a live bait on balloon while we were bottom bashing for reefies. Cheers, Bryce

Here’s some more feedback from happy clients:

hi andrew,mike steele from adelaide,you sent me the 30 two speed and daiwa rod a month ago, used them at pt.mac on 45 to 60# bluefin(52 of them) no probs at all three weeks ago. just got back from second trip (55 in 3 days) but only up to 25#( pounds i'm old),nearly all on laserpros. We use  your hooks,30 for $20 -5/0s i think with 2 split rings and ther'e absolutely brilliant.   Do you have bigger and smaller sizes to put on laserpro 120 and 190?cheers mike.

Give me a call or send an email if you’d like to know more? Thanks for reading,