re: Sixgill fishing reels

I ordered them during the last promotion and I like them thus far. I'm just a weekend warrior and by no means a pro bass angler but they have held up well after about 7 months of use.

I went in on that deal the last time. I think I posted a brief update in the previous thread. I compare everything to my Revo STX. Simply have not been pleased with them at all, even considering them as $75 reels. Spoken to the owner a couple of times about all the issues I was experiencing and got the ol’ “must be a bad batch” line. He did try to rectify the situation and had another set of reels sent out to me but those weren’t any better with problems of their own. I enjoy and am very experienced with tearing reels down, cleaning/repairing them, and even upgrading internals when needed. I consider it a hobby. This is my take away.

The handles are incredible and would put them on every reel if I could. But that is where the good ends because even the handles have design flaws. Cast control sucks due to a bad design, primarily the lack of any sort of centrifugal clutch. All of my overruns occur early to mid-cast which would normally would remedy by engaging an additional centrifugal brake block. It relies entirely on the spool tension setting (with a heavy dose of mag brake) which makes the reel finicky and properly tuning the cast control difficult. Not only that but I find that the tension constantly drifts all over the place throughout a fishing trip. Components that make up the drag are pathetic. On both Hyperions, the aluminum main body is deformed at multiple locations. One of the Crius had the bearing stuck in place on the main gear shaft which made the drag useless. The spool release thumb bar on one of the reels broke after a single outing. Etc, etc, etc.

I managed to piece together 3 functional reels of the 4 that were sent. I kept the Hyperion and gave two Crius away as Christmas presents. Learned my lesson and from now on Abu will continue to get my business.

How do they feel? Tolerances seem tight or like sloppy crap?

I recently watched a man at Harbor Freight argue with the store manager that he should be able to turn in five 20% off coupons at a time and get his stuff for free.

At the top of the long list of shitty retail jobs to have, Harbor Freight has to be up there.

Which grips you going with?

I've heard the cork will start to deteriorate so thinking I'll try the rubber.