After unpacking it, I noticed the black/ chrome on the reel. This looks really clean in my opinion, no fancy anodizing, loud colors or other features to catch fisherman rather then fish. When turning the handle you can feel the smoothness of the reel and how easy it turns, not bad for a Taiwan made reel. Wait, am I missing something, nope, no spare spool, c'mon Shimano, you could not even put a cheapo graphite one in it like back in the day, what a way to save a buck. Other then that its loaded with all sorts of Shinano features along with a 6.0 gear ratio and 8 ball bearings with 1 roller bearing, makes it a solid choice in spinning reels.
After spooling it with Seaguar flurocarbon line, I put it on my loomis Bronzeback SMR882S and hit the swamp with the Kayak. The water level is kind of down so the swamp was a little tough to paddle out, but once the pads were clear it was smooth paddling. One day ill get another jon boat. The lure of the day was a 4" black power worm. Yes, I am perpetually stuck in the 90's with my lure selection and grunge cloths.As I cast the reel, the line came off wihtout any windknots, which is pretty good for me with fluro. The retreive was rather smooth as well, on par with the Luvito. That day the swamp did not dissapoint. A cast was made by the edge of a point. Not a regular point, but one made of pads, it was a slight change in the continuity of the edge. As the lure was slowly worked, a slight tap was felt, after a very enthusiastic hookset, a very feisty Largemouth took off. Now the drag was set a little loose since this fish was not big enough to backreel. The Sustain performed great and in no time the fish was coming in. The handle felt very comfortable and did not feel awkward while reeling in. The Largemouth had nice dark coloring, obviously its been sunning most of the day. A short while later another fish was hooked, then another. It was a day, well 2 hours, filled of Largemouth, Pickerel and Bluegill. Yes, even Bluegill love the worm, usually though it comes back tailless.
Overall I was very happy with the reel, it feels better to me then the Megabass, this could just be because I was raised on Shimano and thats all that has been in my tackle. Although there was a time when a Quantum Tour was in my selection, but we will not talk about that, I was poor and needed fishing tackle, lol, just kidding, about the re
el, not about being poor.
