Cal,
When you click on the Kevin VanDam's Own Performance Tuned Fishing Rod by Quantum tab on the home page, the review for the Pflueger reel comes up.

So when did Johnny Depp start writing your reviews?
Hence, says he. Yea, verily says I!
Hahah fun stuff, you guys are the best.

I don't know how TT can do the great job they do in field testing reels for a length of time before they are available to the public, and providing us addicts with thorough reviews to help us with our decisions concerning which reel to buy next, without the manufacturers help in supplying reels long...

Touche! I guess, if a carpenter were still making bass boats, we'd be stuck with the original Skeeter, totally out of plywood. I wasn't knocking engineers. I was trying to say that engineers probably aren't the best people to evaluate fishing tackle performance, side by side, unless they're avid ang...

I'm just glad there are tests being done by people here who actually fish, instead of engineers. While engineers are smart (just ask them), they also make mistakes because they sometimes can't see the forest for the trees. Remember that Mars probe they parked sub-surface on Mars, because one set of ...

Are fishing reels important enough to take strongly opinionated positions about, or are they, at their heart, just another tool to do a job, and strictly a matter of personal preference?

It's still a $500 reel that you can't adjust without removing the handle and drag star.... wrong... the cast control cap (that red piece in the pic below) can be adjusted w/ your fingers: http://www.japantackle.com/Shimano/Shimano_Aldebaran_BFS1.jpg instead of being on the handle side as with most ...

I read the Daiwa vs Shimano review, and all I could think of was needing a pair of channel locks to adjust the spool tension on the Shimano reel. Not something I would do, or expect to have to do, with a reel of that price and quality. Maybe they're just setting us up to have to buy OEM aftermarket ...

I just read part 2. Another great read.
Thanks.

PeteRobbins wrote:"good friend and fellow outdoor writer Pete Robbins!"

That's Cal's nice way of saying "delusional blogger and tackle whore Pete Robbins"

He probably figures it goes without saying.

All my kids are too big to sell into slavery. Just my luck!
Cal sure makes it tempting to go.

Cal,
Reading your blow by blow was the next best thing to being there.
Thanks.
Mark