Electric Reels

Banaxes are what we use and we love them. LPs are the gold standard but as you know they do not give them away.

My buddy has the Bannex and we use the LP’s for commercial fishing and Swordfishing.

He has custom rods from a place out of Texas and I have custom rods from Swampland tackle

LP. Spend the money you won’t regret it. It’ll handle anything you throw at it.

Aint gonna be popular AT all but.....I have 4 electra mates on Penn 9/0s on straight guide fiberglass rods, straight butt, with swivel tips. They are about 50 ish years old. I have redone the electra mates COMPLETELY. I have owned them for about 20 years. All in I have about $200 in the 4 of them. They ain't automatic, don't have a jig function, but they will winch up a 10 pound queen snapper or a 50 pound grouper 1000 feet as good as any electric reel. I have caught truckloads of fish with these reels. The only thing I do not like is the straight butt but there are ways around that.


I used one of these for years off Stuart as a kite rod. I have used them as downriggers BUNCHES of times. Folks scoff at them....I have been on boats and had people on my boat that had very nice electric reels and when we got back to the hill we had caught about the same weight. They ain't pretty, they are heavy as hell but they are flat out bullet proof and if something does go wrong they are like a ford tractor...you can fix them with a 16d nail and some bailing wire. They are readily available on ebay for around $300. A $100 80 pound road and $100 worth of braid and youre in business for about half the price of a daiwa without the rod and the line. I understand in the era of Sitka and $1000 waders an electr-mate is a joke but they ain't a joke at catching weight....

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What rods are yall running?

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Shakespeare 80 5.5' with straight guides and swivel tips. I don't think they make them anymore. The only drawback is they are straight buts and have a neoprene grip...they are HARD to get out of a rod holder under pressure.

We just use the banax with rod combo from frigate sales for most stuff. Grouper, snapper, tiles..works great and they’re local and pretty easy to deal with if it needs to get worked on.

Fun fact they’re also great for black fin lol. We regularly put a diamond jig on it with blinky light at night under rig. Let it free spool down til it stops falling and slam it full speed. We call it the bait maker

Wouldn’t recommend for swords though. Nearly burned one up catching a 70lb pup.

If using for swordfish LP is the way to go.

tanacoms for grouper and tiles. i go with the shimano 80 handcrank for swords. Reel cranky on my drill for checking baits.

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Sounds like you have some experiences with elect reels. What are your opinions on the Tanacoms? I just don't want to buy any jonk.

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If LP is out of your budget range, then you can't go wrong with purchasing either a Diawa or Banax rod/reel combo for everyday DD. I've had my Tanacom 1000's for several years now, trouble free. We also don't target swords, only DD.

If you're strictly looking to target swords, then you might want to consider either Hooker, Kristal, or LP. The 1500 Banax and 1200 Tanacom will struggle with a pissed off sword.

Agree with what everyone has said, we run 3 banaxes and 1 tanacom and to be honest there isn't much difference. Wouldn't try to catch a sword on one tho.