The ULTIMATE Baitcasting Reel Test (Which Is BEST?)

[00:00:00]The Shimano Curado 150D DC, the Dia Tatula SV, the Arc Fishing Gravity G7, and the Lu Custom Pro with Paramag ITB.

[00:00:15]Each of these reels claims to have the best technology for eliminating backlashes and increasing casting distance. But which one is truly the best? My name's Tyler and let's talk about it.

[00:00:57]Well, Welcome, my friends, to the ultimate bait cast fishing reel break and test. My name is Tyler and the four reels I have in front of me represent the best we have in terms of technological innovations to help baycast users get more casting distance and of course eliminate backlash and have better performance. And don't go anywhere because I'll be giving away all four of these reels to four of you who are watching this video. Now, by no means do I mean these are the only four brands that have a good backlash eliminating uh technology in the reels.

[00:01:24]These are just the ones that I feel like have the best technology and are most available to the US market. What's going on folks? Tyler here checking in from the future. When I started filming this video, Shimano's patent was still around and and enforcable on their DC technology. Nowadays, that's gone. It was like three or four brands that have digital control reels, and I'm sure more are coming. So, that's why the Abbercia Voltic and the Bates EDC or DC or EDM, whatever it is, uh that is not going to be in this video. But there's still four awesome reels that as of when I filmed this were the four best ones out there.

[00:01:58]Continue. Now, full transparency before we get started, Tackle Warehouse did send me all four of these reels under two conditions. One, that I be as fair as possible during my testing because I am partnered with LSE, one of the brands in this video, and two, that I give all four of these away. And I said, absolutely. And the way to win one of these four reels is super dang simple.

[00:02:17]All you have to do is go to my website, tylersreelfishing.com.

[00:02:20]Right when you open it up as a new website visitor, it should have a popup.

[00:02:24]Sign up for my email list. I promise I'm not going to spam you with nothing. Just helpful fishing tips, exclusive stuff, giveaways every single month, not just for these, but every single month, and updates to the cool stuff going on in the fishing world, especially around my channel. Now, if you could also go to the favorite gear page and click check price on any of the stuff that I have on that page, that brings you over to Tackle Warehouse. Like I said, big thanks to them for helping me out with all four of these reels for free. And once you've done those two things, come back and comment done here in the comment section, and you will be entered. Like I said, two months from now or so, I'm going to pick a winner of these reels, or sorry, four winners, one of each reel. And that's all you got to do. Good luck and enjoy today's video.

[00:03:02]All right, so enough housekeeping. Let's dive into this awesome test by talking about baycast fishing reels as a whole, the technology behind them, and what makes each one of these four so special.

[00:03:11]Now, here in front of me, I have a standard bait casting reel. This here is the Mach 1 shallow spool. And the reason why I'm starting with this and not the four that I'm testing is because I want to talk about kind of your standard mechanisms behind performance in terms of casting distance and backlash prevention that most reels I'm talking for the past 15 20 years have had and that is centrifugal braking and magnetic braking. So this reel has both just kind of in a generic way. I'm going to pop the side plate off of this reel here.

[00:03:38]It's going to be a constant struggle in this video is getting side plates off in one take. And so taking the side plate off, you see the two types of brakings we have on this reel. Centrifugal is on the uh the spool itself and magnetic is on the side plate. And centrifugal is the one that I want to discuss first.

[00:03:53]I'm actually going to pop the spool totally out to discuss this type of braking. And the way centrifugal braking works is honestly much like the carnival ride that is a huge big spool that everybody stands on on the outside of and it gets to spinning really fast and your body almost gets like sucked against the side. That is centrifugal force in real life. And that's exactly how centrifugal braking works on a baycast reel because the faster the spool spins, the more a centrifugal force pushes the pins, makes them I'm going to use the word fly a lot in this video. Flies them out to the edge as long as they are activated. Now on this reel here, all four pins are activated.

[00:04:26]So it spins, they fly out, and they help slow down the spool. That is the simple method of centrifugal braking on a bait casting reel that of course helps eliminate backlashes. It's been around for a long time. Then magnetic braking made its way into fishing reels. Now, as you see here on the inside of the side plate, there is a brake pad, I'm going to call it. And that's usually how most magnetic braking works on a bait casting reel. And that pad when adjusted based on the dial on the outside moves the pad closer or further away from the magnet section on the spool itself. This here Mach 1 shallow spool being this black section. Now, what's happening when you do adjust your braking from minimum to maximum? Let me show you. So, if I twist my fingers here from minimum all the way to max, you'll see that the brake pad is getting closer axially to the spool itself. So, not up and down, but in and out. And so, I hope you were able to see that, but if not, I'll use my thumb as up and down. Max braking from the the side plate here is this way. And minimum braking is this way. That way, it affects the spool. More magnet, less magnet. That is axially as opposed to radially. We're going to use some science words today with axial being parallel to the spool and radial being kind of up and down but sort of more like in and out. And so as we put the reel back together right here, if we have the brake set to maximum and all four centrifugal pins activated, this thing's not going to cast very far. And for a long time, this was the only thing we had as anglers to help us get better casting distance and get rid of those nasty backlashes. But we've been able to sense kind of combine elements of magnetic and centrifugal. And that's what all four of these reels and really the majority of the ones on the market have to offer. A combination of of axial and radial, a combination of magnetic and centrifugal. And so we're going to start with the most viral, and that is the Shimano DC technology.

[00:06:17]Now, Shimano's digital control system, also known as DC, has been around for a lot longer than most anglers think. I believe the Klay was the first reel a while ago to have DC in it, but since then it's spread to not just the Japanese market, but also the US market and a bunch of different reels across their product line. This one here, as I mentioned, being the 150 Curado. And just like two of the three others we're going to discuss, it has a dynamic braking system, which means it doesn't apply the same force to the beginning of the cast on the spool to slow it down as it does on the end. therefore eliminating backlashes in the beginning and allowing you to get longer casting distance at the very end. So, we're going to go over with all these reels the parts they have, the components, and what makes each one different. And the components are a side plate containing the microchip housing. I'm guessing this black thing sticking out is where the electromagnetic coils are. We're going to discuss that here in a second. On the side of the side plate, you can tell there's a four stage breaking from one to four with one actually being open.

[00:07:14]You don't want to cast on open. And the last thing is the spool itself that is hollow with the exception of one main thing on the inside and that is your magnet block I'm going to call it that fits perfectly into the black protruding part here which again I'm guessing houses the coils that as the spool spins those magnets cause a current on the inside of the coils and that spinning activates the reel turning on the braking system eliminating the need to ever charge this thing and beyond just being able to see the internals of this reel we as consumers don't know exactly what's going on besides the fact that when this spins, Shimano says the chip inside takes a measurement every 1/ 1,000th of a second on how fast the spool is spinning and if there is some kind of overrun. I don't know how it works, but they say it does. We're going to test it. Now, as far as the actual settings on the outside of the reel, you have open, which again, don't cast on open, and then you have one to four. So, one is for total open water bomb cast, basically no magnetism to the spool itself. two they say is for braid and monofilament. Not exactly sure why.

[00:08:18]Brake setting three they say is for fluorocarbon. Again, I don't think monofilament and fluocarbon cast all that different, but Shimano thinks it does. And then setting four on the reel is just total beginner mode. A whole bunch of braking to the spool itself.

[00:08:31]You only use this one if you're really uh you know, super windy conditions or you're skipping docks, they say. And a special setup instruction they give in the box for DC reels is with the spool tension knob. Normally you want to have it just uh open enough so when you open the spool and let go of your thumb, your bait kind of falls slowly to the ground.

[00:08:50]They say that's not how you do it with this reel. You want to have the tension tight enough so there is zero play in the side of the spool left to right.

[00:08:58]Right about there. No play in the spool.

[00:09:01]They say that's the only need for the spool tension knob. My question would be, why don't they just make it come out of the box with no play in it and totally eliminate the need for the uh the spool tension knob? I'm not sure the answer to that. So, that is real number one, Shimano DC technology. The only one on this list that is any kind of electronic control, any magnetic coils.

[00:09:21]The rest are standard magnetic braking, but they each do things their own way.

[00:09:25]So, let's talk about number two, and that is the Dia Tatula SV system.

[00:09:34]Now, just like Shimano, Dia's SV braking technology has been around for a very long time. Matter of fact, one of the uh screen recordings I got to show you guys how this works is really, really old, like 13 years on YouTube. So, they've been using this for a while, but the real Tackle Warehouse sent me has their new SV Boost, a three-stage braking system. So, let's talk about the parts, the components that make this thing tick. And if you don't have a screwdriver to open up the side plate, you can just use your fingernail. And as we open it up, you'll see on the side plate we have a very different configuration than the Shimano. I'm going to call this a magnetic trough.

[00:10:07]I'm going to keep using the word trough the rest of this video because it applies to the other two reels we have here. But I believe DAW was the first to do it. If we flip the side plate over, we have a 20 point adjustment wheel from 0 to 20. Zero being no brakes, 20 being the most brakes. And as I spin the reel, you'll see the spool has a very interesting feature to it, and that's what they call an induct rotor. This being a dynamic induct rotor. And how it works is that as the spool starts spinning, centrifugal force like we talked about with the Mach 1 earlier sends this rotor out from the spool. And you may ask out to where? Well, out into our magnetic trough. And so the idea with the three-stage system they have here with the SV Boost is that at the beginning of your cast, the hardest you're going to cast, that's the fastest the spool is going to move. Therefore, centrifugal force is the the greatest it's going to be. It's going to shoot. I I I use the word shoot because it makes the most sense here. It shoots the rotor out to its maximum position. Then as the spool slows down, it goes into its center position and then all the way in to finish the cast where it's not in contact with the magnetic trough at all.

[00:11:14]Now, if I'm going to be honest here, this takes a lot of force to go from step one to two to then three. I mean, I'm having to like grip it and pull it to three. So, I'm not gonna say DA is lying when they say this thing shoots all the way out into the magnetic trough. I just think it's pretty hard to do. And so, if it is all the way out there as opposed to just level one back to zero, it's probably just there for a second. And if that's all it needs, that's all it needs. So, that is how the dynamic rotor works. But how does the induct rotor actually interact with the magnetic trough? And is it a constant magnet? The answer is no. As we do the adjustments to the outside of the reel here from 0 to 20, you will see the uh outside ring spins to match the inside ring. There at 20, the rings are totally matching. And there at zero, the lines are not. And what is happening as I do this is that the two rings that have alternating positive and negative magnets are lining up or not lining up depending on how much brakes you have.

[00:12:16]Therefore, making the trough more or less magnetic. Here at zero, the norths match up with all of the souths on the magnets, which means no magnetic field.

[00:12:26]On 20, all the norths match up with the norths, making it the most magnetic. And so the side plate with the magnetic trough and the dynamic induct rotor is a good combination of centrifugal and magnetic braking that DA says, especially with their three-stage system here on the rotor, makes the best anti-backlash technology. We'll see about that. And as far as special setup instructions, they also say the spool tension knob, just like the DC system, is only as useful as making sure there's no play side to side in the spool.

[00:12:56]Again, why? But my job in this video is not to ask why. It's to ask how does it work? And we're going to test that here in a minute. So, that was reel number two, the Dio SV system. Let's move on to reel number three in our lineup, and that is another induct rotor and dynamic braking system, the LSE custom pro.

[00:13:16]the prettiest one in my opinion. If you like flashy, good-looking colors, I feel like a king when I use this reel. And again, full transparency, I've worked with LSE on the YouTube and social media side of things for upwards of seven or eight years, but I'm still going to test this thing as fair as I can. And just like with the first two reels, let's go over the components of the Custom Pro.

[00:13:34]We have a side plate with a magnetic trough. Works a little bit differently than the dial. We'll discuss that here in a second. a 12-point braking system from free one to 10 all the way to M, which I assume stands for max. And just like Diawa, on the side of the spool, you have an induct rotor that flies in and out depending on how fast the spool is going. This one here matching the reel in color, and LSE calls theirs a turbo disc. I'm just going to use the word rotor for all these reels. And the way that it works is identically to the dia in the sense that as the spool gets going faster, the rotor flies outwards interacting with more of the magnets in the trough and therefore slowing down the braking. As the spool slows down, the rotor goes back into its resting position interacting with less of the magnetic field. Unlike the Dia SV system though, the trough on the Custom Pro is not magnetized from both sides of the rotor edge. It is just on the inside.

[00:14:27]And the way the magnetic field gets stronger against the rotor is by radial movement, not axial. The custom pro moves the same set of magnets inward or outward perpendicular to the spool.

[00:14:39]Again, radially, not axially, as you move the the braking from free to max on the outside. As you see here, the rotor's edge on the Custom Pro is also much wider than the one on the Dial is that sits more like central to the uh the spindle here on the spool. And it's also much lighter. I'm not saying this cuz I'm a loose guy. I'm saying this I mean Taylor can attest filming me here that it's much easier to lift this from its resting position against the spool to where LSE says it flies out to during the cast. And so I don't know if either one works as as advertised as marketed, but I feel like if one's going to work better and and and interact with the the magnets on the the beginning of the cast easier, it's going to be the Custom Pro over the DAW. And especially as the way centrifugal force works with a wider uh rotor, more of that force is spread, at least in my science brain, the limited knowledge I have, more of that force is spread to the outside, making it easier to fly out. That's why I think Lou's made theirs so wide. But again, we're going to see if it actually applies in practice. So, that is reel number three, the LSE custom pro. I've been using it for a while. I can tell you guys, it's a fantastic reel, but I truly have no idea how it stacks up to the others. So, I can't wait to see that. Reel number four is going to be the Arc Gravity System.

[00:15:55]And one of the good things I found about all four of these reels is that it's fairly difficult to get the side plate off. You can't say that about reels 10 years ago, I had those fall off all the time. And just like the previous two, we have two magnetic strips forming a magnetic trough in the middle. Unlike the Custom Pro, though, that has magnets going from inside to out. This has outside going in. These magnetic strips are locked on one side and 1 millimeter loose or so on the other side. So when the spool is moving the fastest, the two sides move in to slow down the spool.

[00:16:23]Again, I don't quite see the the purpose of this or the need for it, but that's what Arc has designed with their magnetic trough. On the outside, we have a 20point adjustment system just like we had on the Dawa. And actually, it's a very uh satisfying click. And as we take out the spool, you'll see it also has its own induct rotor. But this one not being dynamic, it is fixed where it's at, but has three separate positions. And that determines how far out it is sticking into the magnetic trough. And the way that you adjust the position of the rotor here on the gravity is by, like I said, pushing in and twisting. And that will either make it hardly interact at all with the magnetic field, interact a little more, or push it all the way out for max braking. Now, how does Ark's rotor interact with Arc's side plate? And that brings us all the way back to what we talked about in the very beginning with standard magnetic braking, moving radially and not axially. As you'll see here, when I adjust the outside wheel, it pushes the magnetic trough again with one side being loose, the other side being fixed, it pushes that closer or further away from the spool itself and the fixed rotor. So, in a way, the Ark actually has 60 different brake settings because you have the uh the setting one here, which is furthest away from the magnetic field, and then 0 to 20. Then you have 0 to 20 at two and 0 to 20 at three. And so, technically, I guess 20 at one is probably more braking than 0 at three, but you got 60 choices. And I don't know if Arc's construction of this reel with the rotor being uh constant, but the magnets being dynamic and that little interesting one millimeter play they have is to get around some kind of patent infringement potentially with one of the other brands. But all I know is I've heard great things about this reel and the three others we're going to test out in the wild. So hopefully this section, even though it's been incredibly technologically uh detailed and I probably spoke way too fast at times, my goal is that you understand more about all the braking systems out there. That way when we're actually going out on the water into the ponds and into the football field, you can see why these things work the way they do.

[00:18:25]If I did a good job, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. My goal is to help you guys become better bass anglers. And sometimes we go very much into the weeds with technological details. But the time for that is over.

[00:18:35]I say we get out of the studio, head into the real world to see which one of these four reels has the best casting results. Welcome to the testing portion of this video. We're at a local high school here by my uncle's house in Minnesota. And I've got a few disclaimers to make before we cast all four reels in many different ways. The first of which being is that each angler has a different type of casting form.

[00:18:56]And so as I test distance and backlash or anti-backlash ability and just the general feel of the reels, I'm going to try to use two different casting forms.

[00:19:04]My general kind of like sidearm whip cast that I like to use for max distance, but also one that's kind of a a lighter overhand style cast. And by doing two different casting forms, I'm going to try to cover kind of the main two styles of casting I see out there.

[00:19:16]And second, I'm not going to do any tests that I think are totally irrelevant to actually testing a reel, like casting straight into a wall. All four of these are going to backlash if you do that. And the ability to completely take your thumb off the spool on every single cast is honestly, in my opinion, not really a metric worth caring about. I will talk about it in every test as kind of the general feel of each cast with each reel. But like I said, not a metric worth caring about cuz every single bait cast user should be using your thumb to maintain contact and understand what your spool is doing on every cast. And of course, all four reels are going to be spooled with the exact same line, the exact same rod, and the exact same bait in every test. We're going to start with 15 pound floor. The rod is the LE signature series 72 heavy moderate fast. And then I've got a 38 ounce outcast tackle swim jig. I'm going to get my five best cast with each one.

[00:20:01]Not starting from the beginning. I'm going to get each one dialed in because I feel like it wouldn't be fair to just start immediately casting, get a backlash. So, I'm going to dial each one in and then go five best lengths. And before we make our first cast, little conditions update. The wind is totally gone and the sun is as well. So, no need for the hat. I'm going to kind of make, like I said, some test casts here with each one before I get going. See if I can't dial these things in the best that I can. And I know I said I'm not going to use keeping the thumb on the spool as a a metric of success for each reel, but I am going to kind of give a an easeability, I'll call it, rating for each reel. Like, do I have to thumb it a whole lot to get to that 40, 50, 60 yards, or is it just super simple plug-andplay? Okay, I'd say this one is dialed as a lose guy. Starting with the custom pro. Taylor, you ready? Cast one.

[00:20:44]Got to thumb it a little bit. What do we got? 42 yards. Just took a little bit of thumb on the spool. Let's try less thumb.

[00:20:52]Oh, got a little backlash there. 38 yards.

[00:20:56]Backlash lost me four yards. Let's go ahead and add just one more click of the spool here of of the brakes there.

[00:21:05]Oh yeah, 41 yards. Wonder if I click one more brake level on the paramag then also loosen the spool tension 40 on the dot high school sports. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that I left the line on these reels in the back of my truck to bake in the heat for about a week and a half. And so, as you can see, they actually all have some memory on them. They'd probably get a few more yards each if it was brand new fresh line, but how many of us have brand new fresh line all the time? Last one. Oh, baby.

[00:21:38]>> 42. Okay. So, it looks like about 40 to 42 yards is average for this line and this rod in my casting style on this reel. But, like I said, I'm going to do a different casting style. Kind of a more pop style over the shoulder direct overhand cast and see what that looks like for my best five here.

[00:21:56]No thumb on the spool. 33 yards. Almost 10 more yards for a harder cast. Let's try it again. A little harder.

[00:22:05]Wow. No thumb on the spool. Okay. 35 yards. I'm going to loosen it a little bit and thumb it a little bit more.

[00:22:13]Nice. 37. Two more pop style.

[00:22:18]>> 36. And one more paw paw style.

[00:22:24]>> 37.

[00:22:24]>> 37. And so that is the paw paw style average. And that is the normal style average. Although seeing that if I thumb it a little bit, I get more distance. I am going to make one more full cast with the brakes on the Paramag on three just to see if I can get longer. 45. Okay, so that is the LE Paramag ITB on the Custom Pro. Let's move on to Shimano Curado, the 150 DC. Y'all are about to hear a lot of And because we have floor carbon line on here, we have it on setting three for floor carbon. I'm just going to trust Shimano is right when they say that's the right setting.

[00:22:59]Goodness, that was a lot more backlash than I thought for the first test. So, here's your answer. Can DC backlash?

[00:23:05]Yes, it can. And the lighting is getting bad. Sorry, y'all. Got to switch the cameras around. This This is a hard video to film. So far, DC is not feeling as easy to get dialed despite it only having four settings. I mean, I've messed with it for like 5 10 minutes now. Not nearly as easy.

[00:23:20]Okay, floor carbon setting is the way to go. All right, cast one.

[00:23:25]Oh, got to thumb it and got a backlash.

[00:23:27]36 yards. Oh, 37. He said, "I'm sure someone in the comments is like, "Bro, mine never backlashes." And you know what? It's totally possible that I just don't get it dialed in right, but I' I've been here 10 minutes. Cast two better. 40. Okay, cast three.

[00:23:45]39 and a half. I'm shocked, honestly.

[00:23:50]40. Man, it's consistent. I'll give it that. Last cast. No thumb. Oh goodness.

[00:23:56]Wow. And 36 on the last one. This thing is not supposed to be backlashed and I'm backlashing it. But so far, definitely intriguing results. Let's go paw paw style here. Cast one. 30 yards.

[00:24:12]Dang. 28.

[00:24:16]>> 31.

[00:24:20]>> 30. So, with that, we have the Paw Power results over here for the Shimano DC and the full length, full power cast over there. Honestly, surprised at how much less it cast than the lose. And again, I'm being as unbiased as I possibly can.

[00:24:34]I know guys love this reel, but I definitely had to use my thumb on the spool to stop backlashes a lot more than I did so far on the lose. Many more tests to come. Let's go to the SV braking on the Tatula. Let's get it dialed in.

[00:24:47]That was braking level eight.

[00:24:50]Let's try two.

[00:24:52]A lot more thumb on the spool there.

[00:24:54]Gosh. I think we're ready here. Cast one.

[00:25:00]>> 36.

[00:25:05]>> Gosh.

[00:25:06]>> 30. No. No. 35. Let's see if we can add a little bit less brakes.

[00:25:13]There we go.

[00:25:15]38.

[00:25:17]39.

[00:25:19]Oh yeah, there we go.

[00:25:22]>> 40. Okay, I slowly got better and better with this reel, but it was still a little bit less. Let's go pop style.

[00:25:31]That was a good popaw style. 33.

[00:25:35]Oh, no thumb on that one. 37. Wow. Maybe the whip casting motion with this one with no thumb is actually better. Wait, Taylor's a big D fan. Do you use your thumb on the spool?

[00:25:44]>> A little bit, he says. Okay.

[00:25:47]>> Wow.

[00:25:48]38 and A2. We're discovering new things out here.

[00:25:55]>> 38 and A2. One more.

[00:26:00]>> 38 and A2. Consistent. About the same, if not more, than my regular cast. Let me make one more full speed sidearm cast.

[00:26:10]>> 42. Maybe this reel had to be broke in cuz that's better. I'm going to count these next five. Seems like somehow it's casting better now than when I started.

[00:26:20]There we go.

[00:26:22]>> 43. Okay, I'm going to make a few more casts after this with the Shimano to see if I mess something up.

[00:26:30]43. And just from a feel perspective, I've had to use about the same amount of thumb pressure to stop backlashes kind of near the beginning of the whip as I did with the lose.

[00:26:41]44. Okay, so we're getting a little bit better here. So, the average is Pawpa style over here and full power cast over on this side. I'm going to do a few more on the Shimano just to see if maybe it's got to be like broke in cuz that'd be weird. But 39 and a half about the same.

[00:26:59]Oh, almost hit Taylor. 44 he says. Okay, maybe my arm's getting warmed up now. I should go back to the lose. I'll get 50 yards.

[00:27:08]>> 44 but did get some overrun. All right, one more with the Shimano 43. So updated paw paw and regular for Shimano. We've got one more to go and that is the Arc Gravity G7. Let's get it dialed in. Feel like for a distance I should have this thing on setting one.

[00:27:30]Ooh, not nice.

[00:27:34]Gosh, I can't tell if this one needs more brakes in the beginning or the end.

[00:27:39]Goodness. Yeah, it needs more in the beginning. I'm gonna go level three.

[00:27:43]Less spool tension, less external.

[00:27:46]There we go. That's better. All right, camera back. Let's do five for cast one.

[00:27:52]Thumbmed it a little bit. 42.

[00:27:57]42 and a2. Let's go. A little more brakes, a little less thumb.

[00:28:03]Oh no. 37. Let's go back. Less brakes, more thumb.

[00:28:11]41 and a half. There we go.

[00:28:15]>> That's some distance. 47. Okay, I got to go a little higher.

[00:28:21]>> There we go. 45. Okay, so the goal is go a little higher, I guess. I apologize for the lack of scientific constants in this test, but I'm trying my best. Papa style.

[00:28:34]Got to use some more thumb on this one.

[00:28:35]36.

[00:28:39]31 and a half.

[00:28:44]>> 34 and a half. Let's go real high lob.

[00:28:48]High is not good. Don't cast a bait caster that high. Keep it a little lower, folks. There we go.

[00:28:55]31 and a half. Last one coming up.

[00:29:01]35 and a half. So, those are the results with our gravity pop on this side.

[00:29:05]Regular, full speed, full strength. I'm going to do two more casts with each one now that I feel like I've gotten the technique of each cast down just to see if the results have changed since starting at the very beginning. Back to custom pro.

[00:29:19]42. Okay. A little shorter than I was getting.

[00:29:25]45. Final two cast average on the LSE custom pro right there. Shano >> 43 40 and a half Shimano 150 DC final two cast average right there. Dawa Tula >> 39 36 and a half. Man, am I getting tired?

[00:29:56]That was a 40. Okay. Goodness gracious.

[00:29:58]We'll take the two best ones there.

[00:30:00]Although my casting form was not the exact same on that cast. Gravity G7.

[00:30:05]Oh, backlash. Official cast one. There we go.

[00:30:11]42 and a half.

[00:30:14]That felt good.

[00:30:17]46. Whoa. And arc gravity final two average right there. But we are not done yet. That was lame. We'll talk more about the results from test one later on the video, but we're going to switch out the 3/8 ounce swim jig for a mock spray and shad 90 popper with no hooks. It is a really, really light bait. Going to try to see the distance on a light bait on the same exact setups. And for the light lure section here, I'm going to go in reverse order. I'm going to go arc, dia, shimano, then lose. And just to start off the rip, I'm going to go with more brakes. I'm going to go level 18 here. A little more spool tension. And I'm definitely not expecting nearly as much distance out of these. Thumb off the spool on the light lure test.

[00:30:56]Absolutely not one I care about. Every single cast I'm going to be thumbming a little bit. Cast one. Arc 33.

[00:31:06]31.

[00:31:09]33.

[00:31:12]That was better. 37. Not going to lie, kind of shocked that I can cast something this light that far.

[00:31:20]There we go. 38. Gravity define gravity.

[00:31:26]39. Getting better and better. All right. G7 results right there. Dial.

[00:31:32]Let's get it dialed. Maybe less brakes and more thumb. Yo. Whoa. Nope. More brakes. There we go. Okay, we are ready.

[00:31:40]What was that? 35. He wasn't filming that one, but that'll be my first cast on the Dawa.

[00:31:47]There we go. 39. Wow, I can't believe these reels are almost casting this far with light stuff.

[00:31:55]37 37 again.

[00:32:03]40 and a half.

[00:32:08]39 and a2. I believe that was five on the dawa. Here's the average. Curado 150.

[00:32:14]Out of all the reels so far, the Shimano has been the hardest to dial in. Believe it or not, no, the exact same. I don't know what on earth Shimano thinks these settings do differently. I'd like an explanation for somebody at the company. Cast number one.

[00:32:29]>> 31. Wow. At least no backlashes yet.

[00:32:37]>> 29. Some overrun. Let's try wide open just for fun.

[00:32:43]>> 35. Okay, that was better.

[00:32:47]33 and a half. One more I think 35 with the sun totally in my face. That is the DC average right there. And last but not least, Custom Pro. Very light lure.

[00:33:03]>> Oh wow.

[00:33:04]>> Already better. See if I can do more brakes and less thumb. Now you may be saying, Tyler, why are you tuning in a reel on a lure this light on a 72 heavy?

[00:33:11]I'd never throw a lure this this light on a rod that heavy. Honestly, I'm doing it because it's gonna have trouble casting on a rod this heavy. Try a few more.

[00:33:21]All right, think we got the custom pro dialed in. You ready?

[00:33:25]Oh, whoa. Almost hit, Taylor. 37. Number two.

[00:33:31]40. Number three.

[00:33:35]36. My arm is getting so tired.

[00:33:40]That felt good. 40. Last one. Can we beat 40?

[00:33:45]Don't think so. A little overrun. 40.

[00:33:48]Okay. Wow. And so that is the Custom Pro light lure best five average. I pride myself on being as scientific as possible. And I hope that that first testing section was. Again, someone's going to comment, "You could have done this or that better." I know I could have. Whatever this or that is. And so, as the sun makes me glow, bakes my skin, we're going to head and get something baked and delicious. Maybe raising canes, Taylor. Yeah. Okay. And we'll see you guys for test number two of all these reels on the water for how good do they skip.

[00:34:21]Skipping a jig under a dock. Heck, skipping any lure underneath anything.

[00:34:25]Dock, overhanging tree, you name it.

[00:34:27]Skipping is an important thing to know how to do as an angller. And so that's what I'm going to be testing these four reels. Now, we're kind of going to go over the uh the the scorecard, per se, as to who's winning. I only have two skipping rods, though. So, I'm going to start with these two and then go to these. As far as my calculations, I have not edited the video yet, so I could be slightly off, but it looks like on the normal lure casting, normal lure weight, custom pro and arc were winning. And as far as light lure goes, the dia and the custom pro were winning. So, I'm going to start with the custom pro because by the time I skip a whole bunch, I'm going to be dialed near the end. And so, I'm going to skew my worst skips to this reel right here. And also to kind of, you wreck the bias of like he's a lose guy. I'm going to use this first and then the arc. And then the dial. and we'll finish with the Curado DC. Found ourselves a beautiful dock here in Gunnersville, Alabama. Let's get started. And the exact same line that I used when I filmed that casting portion, which by the way, kind of behind the scenes. I filmed that, nine months ago, like a long time ago. Maybe maybe maybe 10 months ago. And uh the line is still on there. So definitely peeling it off.

[00:35:27]We're going to have even more memory than we had uh the previous time that it was just sitting on there for a few days. And Taylor, zoom in and show them where we're going to cast. I'm going to go for this slot right there. I landed on the outside, but I'm going to try to go underneath that one. I feel like as far as skipping goes, it's so much easier to skip a short distance. So, like if I was like, Taylor, turn around here. If I was to just come back here and skip 10T from the boat, it's not all that hard to kind of like roll cast and get your your lure under there. But when it comes to like a 55, 60, 70 foot skip, trying to get it way over there, that's really challenging. So somewhere in the middle is I feel like what needs to be tested. And I keep my brakes on the Custom Pro just like standard fishing around five or six. I'm going to go a little bit higher just because I feel like most beginners setting up a reel are going to have brakes tighter. And honestly, you probably should. Not most.

[00:36:14]Most do. You should if you're learning how to skip. So I'm going to go with that. Let's go spool tension a little bit tighter. And I don't really have like a number of casts. It's just going to be make 20 or so, you know, five or six minutes fishing and see which one of these feels easiest to get dialed in on and which one I can get furthest underneath the boat dock.

[00:36:37]And the whole goal with a skipping test is not to see how high I can keep it off, you know, off the water underneath there. Normally it would. I want to see how many times can I skip it without really getting much backlash. I'm going to try a little bit less spool tension and two clicks less on the brakes.

[00:36:56]I have not actually seen my jig on the other side of the dock yet, like from the my my eyes vantage point. And so that'll kind of be the the tester. Oh, barely saw it there on how far a skip made it. Oh my gosh.

[00:37:10]You catch that one? Wow. All right, I feel relatively dialed. Let's go five with not much finger on the spool. Okay, one pull. So, we got the backlash out. I mean, skipping is not a backlash free thing. You got to give your jig time to sink to the bottom anyways. So, one loop out is fine.

[00:37:27]Okay, that was more than one. Oh, but it stopped it like that. I I I definitely stopped way too early. One, two, three poles and we're out. Nice.

[00:37:37]Perfect. Barely any overrun.

[00:37:42]Beautiful. Oh my gosh. Okay, so I say five minutes. I got this thing dialed in. Almost no backlashes. Again, I'm a good skipper, so maybe I should make a bad cast.

[00:37:54]Again, that was like not a good skip and it has one loop to come out. So, I don't know. I feel like this reel pretty easy to get dialed in skipping. Let's snip off this jackpot jig and tie it on the arc. Feel like spool tension needs to be a tiny bit tighter on this one. And then I had the brakes on 18 out of 20. I guess I'll look on the inside, see if I need to change anything. I mean, I'm on three. And again, skipping generally you want the most brakes for cuz it's kind of an unforgiving thing. So 20 and three. Let's see. That rhymed.

[00:38:24]That definitely felt pretty loose.

[00:38:29]Oh, that was good. Let's just see what doing less brakes does. 10.

[00:38:35]It's like it actually skipped better with more brakes. Like it it somehow went farther.

[00:38:40]Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, that's the settings. Let's just make sure. Let's move this to uh let's go ahead one.

[00:38:47]Probably a nightmare idea. Oh yeah.

[00:38:50]Okay. Yep. Immediately. If you want to skip the arc gravity, put that thing on three. Honestly, maybe have it all the time on three. I just made a maintenance cast out of there to get rid of some of the uh the loops and it still cast pretty dang far. So, I think three is just a good setting. Yeah. All right.

[00:39:06]Few more casts. No thumb. Oh, okay. No thumb. Definitely was a little bit rougher there than the lose. Again, not that you should ever go no thumb on skipping. Like I would never ever recommend that. But just seeing how these brakes work. Okay.

[00:39:20]No. No. Okay. No. Can't do that with the Arc. And just like most bait casting reels, if you're going to skip, got to use your thumb a little bit.

[00:39:28]Limited backlash. Last skip. I mean, pretty good results. I'd say it's almost as good as the lose. Maybe it's a comfortability thing. The fact that I use the Custom Pro in my everyday fishing all the time. It just feels a little bit easier to skip and set up on the Custom Pro than the Arc, but still a pretty dang good skip and reel. Snip snap. Get the jig off and let's put it on the Dawa. And if you remember on these two, the DA and the Shimano, they say not to touch the spool tension knob.

[00:39:53]So, we're just going to put the brakes on. Guess we'll start with like 16.

[00:39:58]Ooh, that feels pretty good.

[00:40:01]Yeah, honestly have a little bit less brakes. Feel like Seth Fighter skipping a jig with a dank dia.

[00:40:08]Except his results look better than that. Oh my gosh, this one feels good.

[00:40:13]Maybe even less.

[00:40:15]Oh yeah, this one comes off the spool really good. Like the whole process of skipping and reeling just feels smoother on this one than on the uh the arc and a little bit more than the loose. Like it was a bad skip. I landed here to start and I have no backlash. So, this one is winning so far. And I'm only like six casts in.

[00:40:35]See if we can go no fingers on there. I mean, that's pretty dang good. I would say after 25 casts or so, I'm ready to put this thing down and say this is winning the skipping battle so far. It's not like a whole lot better than the lose, but it's definitely better than the Ark. And it's just a really good Like, look at that. I landed so short.

[00:40:54]Still skipped all the way underneath.

[00:40:56]Now, of course, had to use a little bit of thumb, but have absolutely no loose line on there at all. So, SV is a pretty good skipping reel. Let's get them scisses out, cut off the jig, and put it on the last one, the Curado DC. Now, as I read online, it says set the brakes to four. Make sure there's no side to side spool tension. Honestly, feels a little too tight, but it's time we see if the 150 DC can skip better than it's been casting.

[00:41:23]Pretty good. Once again, really smooth like the dial. Oh, that was a bad skip.

[00:41:28]I'm not getting as far. Yeah, I feel it's slowing it down. Yeah, like at the very end, which is good. It eliminates the backlash, but it's slowing it down.

[00:41:37]I don't know, man. The brakes just feel like too tight. Like that skip was good, but I'm I'm having to give it a lot more energy and force to get under there than I especially was the Iowa. But even the lose in the arc, I was getting further distances on like less effort. That was a good skip there, but I just had to really force it. Like you shouldn't have to like really cast that hard to get it under there. I mean, it's smooth for sure, but really feels tight. Let's go ahead and try it on three, even though they say not to.

[00:42:06]I felt like that one was a lot looser.

[00:42:08]Just one cast on three. And yes, got a little bit of backlash there or overrun, but with the same effort, I was able to get a few more feet of distance.

[00:42:17]Okay. Well, that that that resulted from three. Maybe I'll go back to four.

[00:42:22]That's crazy. Switching back to four. I feel how tight that was, but no backlash. Last cast here. Let's go. No fingers. I mean, that's pretty dang good. One of the best distances I got.

[00:42:32]And two and a half pulls. So, of the four reels, which one do I think won skipping today?

[00:42:39]This one right here. Dial Tatula SVTW.

[00:42:42]It just felt the smoothest. It skipped pretty dang good and had the least amount of backlashes and took me, I mean, Taylor can attest, took me the least amount of time to set up. Could that be coincidental in the sense that like this one was just more ready to go than these ones? And if I was to spend 20 more minutes on each one, I could get it to feel just as good. That's possible. But the uh the combination of smoothness and less backlashes and distance was this one right here. I would say second place, let's kind of order them here, was probably I'm going to give it to lose. And the reason why even though the Shimano felt more smooth on the skip is because my distance with the least amount of backlashes was better on the LSE than the Shimano, it did seem easier to skip, but not as far with the Shimano. So maybe if you're like beginning skipping. Now all of these the caveat is I like to use an actual skipping reel. This is the LSE Pro SP. It is a shallow like a really shallow spool reel. Only fits like 45 yards of 20 lb line. And I just feel like uh electric braking or paramag braking, whatever the type is, I don't care. A shallow spool kind of makes up for all that. And so the fact that all of these are not shallow spools, I'm going to go with dia then lose. Then I'm going to go with Shimano over the arc.

[00:43:54]And again, that is just because I feel like this one didn't feel as smooth, wasn't as easy to set up, and I had a lot more backlashes on that one than I did any of the other ones. And so that's my testing result there. I guess if we're going to put these together, that kind of puts LSE up top. Again, if we're going to combine the casting uh heavy, casting light, and regular, but Dawa is not far behind. Again, though, I I feel like I'm going to get to the end of this video and say they're all good reels, cuz they pretty much are. Uh I don't know which one's going to win. So, let's get to our last test. Heavy heavy win.

[00:44:33]Now, hopefully you could tell from that drone shot, it is gassing out here today. I'd say I mean sustained 15 to 20 miles an hour, maybe even gusts of of higher than that, but I'm really hoping for no gust today because I want each of these reels to have the same again, as much as I can help it, the same conditions they are being tested under.

[00:44:52]And this was about the the most straight line wind I could find. And so, I went to the store and I bought the cheapest 40 lb, maybe four strand braid I could find. And I'm gonna cast the same braid, the same amount of braid as well, same backing, same braid on all four reels.

[00:45:06]I'm gonna cast a very challenging lure that to cast nowadays. And that is the urchin style lure category with just a little bit of weight on the bottom. So, I have the loading dock at the lake behind me. I would say 40ish yards, it could be less. I haven't cast in a while, but I'm going to take each reel and make some cast downwind to kind of get the braid worked onto the spool because braid is notoriously difficult to deal with immediately after spooling.

[00:45:30]And then I'm gonna figure out, again, it's a total feel thing, what feels easier to dial in going against a solid wind and which one can go further on a fivecast average. Let's begin with the dower.

[00:45:49]Okay, first cast. We're going to start with the brakes on more than I would like.

[00:45:55]Oh man. Okay, too much brakes. It's good to know. landed about 15 yards short of the dock. So, we can for sure get farther than that. Let's go to eight. I definitely feel the brakes kicking in. I almost got there with hardly any thumb on the spool. Now, of all the types of casting on a bait caster into the wind, you need to have your thumb on the spool and just it's a muscle memory thing. Learn what it feels like to stop a backlash before it happens.

[00:46:25]Oh, about 5 yards short. How about no thumb on five?

[00:46:30]Oh, look at that. It got rid of it. Very nice.

[00:46:35]All right. Got a little bit of backlash there. I'm kind of consistently landing uh four to six yards short of the loading dock. No more overhand.

[00:46:47]Oh, three yards short.

[00:46:50]But overall, man, two yards short.

[00:46:52]Pretty impressed with the Tatula against the wind. Now, I guess I should probably try some backhand casts, even though I'm not too good at them.

[00:47:02]There we go. Totally into the wind.

[00:47:04]About four yards short. And I'd say overall to land it. Oh, one yard short.

[00:47:11]Pretty dang good. We'll get the tutoula in first place out of one so far. Oh, well, just realized the chest cam wasn't recording for that sequence, but y'all get the idea. Time to do the lose.

[00:47:27]Now, on the Custom Pro, I'm going to start with the brakes on four. And then the spool tension, I'm going to go It's kind of tight right now.

[00:47:37]Pretty good. But I really feel the brakes kicking in. So, let's go with a little bit less brakes. Maybe less spool tension.

[00:47:47]All right. About four yards short. It still feels like though something is a little tight. So, let me just get spool tension like as loose as I would without the wind.

[00:47:58]Three yards short.

[00:48:00]Higher in the air. No thumb. Nice. Just one little pull.

[00:48:06]Oh my gosh. I cast like one I guess I don't have much braid on here. It's a shallower spool. I almost cast my dang braid off. I was even with the dock if not like a yard into it. Let's try again. No thumb.

[00:48:20]All right. Three yards short. No backlash. And then let's go backhand here.

[00:48:26]Ooh, four yards short. Little bit of overrun. And let's try to cast the dang braid off.

[00:48:34]One yard short. Okay. I would say about as easy to tune in, maybe a little bit easier than the Dawa. Just like I talked about earlier, I like that this one has two different things to change. the outside braking on the Paramag, but also the spool tension, unlike the dial in the Shimano where you're not really supposed to change the spool tension.

[00:48:51]So, I like that it has two things.

[00:48:52]Moving on to the Ark.

[00:48:59]And I've not touched the Ark since the last time we skipped with it. So, it's on brake 20. I'm just going to go break 16. And then I think it's on three on the inside. Let me check. Indeed. Yep.

[00:49:09]Number three. And I don't imagine I'll have to take it off of three because I felt like three casts just better anyways in the last challenge.

[00:49:17]And first cast about four yards short.

[00:49:18]Once again though, and I know this is not part of the, you know, comparison, but this is just not as smooth as the other ones.

[00:49:27]Three yards short. Honestly, pretty dialed already.

[00:49:31]Yep. I went higher with that one just to test the capabilities because of course I could do like a super high pawpaw style cast in the wind which would really test the braking. But honestly, you shouldn't do that in the wind anyways. You should learn to cast kind of a low roll to keep it out of the wind. I'm just seeing which one for my casting style, which I think is the best for high wind does the best.

[00:49:54]The harder I cast, the worse it is.

[00:49:58]There we go. Even with a duck. Let me try a few less breaks. 12.

[00:50:02]Ooh. Immediately. Okay. 12. Not enough.

[00:50:06]Let's go back to 14.

[00:50:09]Oh, yeah. Two yards short. But overall, I'd say the arc. I mean, on the dock right there, just about as easy as the rest of them. It's It's funny. Skipping kind of showed a difference. Casting into the wind. They're all doing pretty good. And lastly, Shimano.

[00:50:29]Now, as Shimano says, setting number two is their braid setting, so we're going to trust them. Didn't seem like the settings were right last time, but I think two might be good.

[00:50:40]And I mean, like, no backlash, but a little short. I could tell the brakes kicked in because I I made a catch at the end of the dock, and because the brakes were activated, it slowly moved its way, like the the force of the the pull on the line moved the lure the furthest I've I've had it to uh the shore.

[00:50:59]I mean, that's like the least backlash so far on no thumb.

[00:51:06]Three yards short. No thumb. One pull.

[00:51:10]Oh man. Little gust did that to it. My goodness. And that is the worst one I've had yet.

[00:51:18]Three yards short. It's almost like they're all pretty good.

[00:51:24]Yeah, I can definitely tell the brakes are activated because I'm making the same cast that normally winds up on the tip of the dock or on the right side and it's winding up halfway to shore. Then we'll go final cast here before this local guy needs the dock.

[00:51:37]Oh my gosh. I mean about the same distance as everybody else, but does end up a little farther left. So, I have to actually adjust my casting style if I was to keep this going forward.

[00:51:49]Now, what actually happened in this video, this test, versus what I had hoped would happen were two very different things. I had hoped that one of these reels would blow the others out of the water. It would outpace them on every test, on skipping, on casting, into the wind, without the wind. And I'd hoped that would be the one that I'm sponsored by, the LE Custom Pro. What ended up happening, which is what I thought would happen, is that every reel that I tested is a good quality product, which really kind of goes and flies in the face of maybe many of you guys out there who hold the view that the product I have is the best and all the other rod and reel brands stink. And especially nowadays in this economy, the worldwide fishing market, that's just increasingly less and less the case. These are not all made in the same factory, but I guarantee you people hop around factories. They work at one, then work at the other. None of this technology is like super secretive. Everybody knows what every other brand is doing. And so, when it comes to choosing your bay casting reel brand or your your spinning reel brand, almost every good quality company, there's plenty of bad ones out there, but the reputable ones that have a lot of good products that have a lot of dollars put into them, they make a good quality reel. And so the DC, you may have entered thinking that's going to be the best one. Ends up, it was about just as good as others, fell short in some ways, was even better in others.

[00:53:10]Same thing with the Ark, with the Dia, and with the Lose. Now, as a lose guy, I'm going to continue. I'm paid to, but I'm going to continue even if I had a choice to fish with this reel because I like the way it feels. I like how light it is. I like that it did cast lighter lures better than the rest of the reels.

[00:53:28]But if you want to make a different choice, go for it. I'm not going to sit here and say that you have to buy lose rods and reels because I just proved that all of these products are quality products and that was a really really fun test. Again, I had hoped one would outpace the others. Maybe you thought the DC because of its technology would have and it just didn't. But of course, we are giving away all four of these reels. So, make sure to go to my website, sign up for my email list. I promise I'm not going to spam y'all with anything. Select any of those Tackle Warehouse links. Just click check price and that gets you tracked on Tackle Warehouse. Huge thanks to them for sending all four of these reels. Big thanks to LSE for being confident enough in their product. Even though I'm exclusive with this company to tell me, Tyler, go ahead, test it compared to other reels, we are confident with how it will turn out. And let me tell you, this reel is a fantastic reel. So, as a lose guy, I would recommend this reel.

[00:54:16]But again, all four of these are awesome products. Now, if you like the whole like tackle and gear comparison, I will leave my most recent tackle time video where I compared a a stick bait with a blade versus one without it, I will leave that clickable over here in this corner. And if you like the length of this video, you're going to love the uncut bass fishing channel I have. I will leave that channel clickable over here in this corner. Go ahead and subscribe there. It is like 1 to three hour long bass fishing adventures. Huge thanks to Tackle Warehouse. Huge thanks to everybody that was involved in this video. And thanks to y'all for watching one heck of a long video.