|
|
Posts: 1237
Location: South Portsmouth, KY | Hey all. Anyone got any good reports on this reel. How good is it for burning cowgirls fast yet when you need to slow down the retrieve some it can be slowed down? Thanks!
Edited by muskie_man 10/26/2008 2:55 PM
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 20243
Location: oswego, il | I just bought one recently. It has two locations that you can attach the power handle to and the one that makes the handle longer is really great. you can hardly feel the drag of a double 10. You can retrieve it fast or slow. I have only used it a few times but so far i am plased with the reel, it is by far better than my 7000. The only thing I had to change is how i hold the reel a little, I was stretching my "hey your number one" finger and it was realy sore after throwing it for a day. I tried cupping more on the bottom and that made it just fine. |
|
| |
|
| can you explain why that reel is better than a 7000? |
|
| |
|
| Do a search for Penn 975 here....lots of stuff. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 531
Location: Hugo, MN | I like my 975 a lot. It's been absolutely bulletproof for two years running now. Not a good choice for burning bucktails, because of the low gear ratio, but a great reel for standard retrieves. I tend to work my cowgirls faster than normal, but that's because it's so easy to reel with the 975. I can't say enough good stuff about it. Definitely worth the money.
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 20243
Location: oswego, il | For one it is built better with stainless gears. it has a bigger power handle, the bigger setting makes them effortless. You do have to reel pretty fast to burn them but it's not that hard to do. I have a 7000 with a mechanical anti reverse and in less than a year it's gone out. i have two penns that i have had 0 issues with in three years. No reel has ever done that for me. |
|
| |
|
| maybe your 7000 is not the good model?975 is just right handed only when more than 80% cast whit the right ............ |
|
| |
|
Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I have had 3 Penn 975's running for 2 seasons now, and until about mid way through this year, I would have agreed that they are bullet proof. Now I think they are just like every other reel I use, that requires maintentance after each season which isn't a big deal. The parts I had to buy for all three that failed(pinion gear and main drive gear) were quite expensive, and I'll pay more attention to what caused the failures this next time around. Also know of 2 out of a dozen around here(I had one) that had faulty level wind systems from get go but were replaced/repaired at the factory no questions asked.
With that said, I love the Penns, and have put hundreds of hours on them serving my double 10 and dawgs, so get the brunt of the work throughout the season. they can a bit touchy to adjust for your casting style, perhaps, but once dialed in, are very sweet. With the 4.7:1 gears, they really burn the big tails in with ease, are smoother than most winch type reels, and drags are solid. The rubber grip power handle is great too. I've 'sold' about a dozen of them to friends and club members here and they are all very happy with them too.
Edited by Reef Hawg 10/28/2008 8:26 AM
|
|
| |
|
| been using 975s for a long time...4+ yrs...unfortunately as is the case with seemingly everything manufactured these days.. the parts are now made in China and quality has gone down hill with it..my original 975 of 4 yrs ago was SOLID.
went 2 yrs with 100s of hours before it went...now I have 3 and just rotate them..they break..levelwinds get messed up...the one nice thing about Penn that I like..is they gaurantee their work for 1 full year after sending them in....so keep your reciepts! I numbered my reels with a sticker underneath so I know which ones are going in for work...I have used about every reel known for double 10s and though the Shimano TE is smoother, it does pull harder simply from the Penn having a more user friendly gear ratio....
but yah, they work. |
|
| |
|
| 975s are 4.5 to 1...the 965s are 4.7 to 1.... |
|
| |
|
| bn, Where did you hear that they are made in China? As far as I know they are still made in the USA. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | guest - 10/28/2008 9:06 AM
bn, Where did you hear that they are made in China? As far as I know they are still made in the USA.
i met 4 penn reel engineers on a flight to shanghai in 2005 ... i'm pretty sure they weren't going there on vacation. |
|
| |
|
| they are assembled in Pennsylvania....Parts are MADE in china....right from the Penn tech's mouth I talk to numerous times about the crap parts they put in them.
|
|
| |
|
| sled, Penn makes a lot of reels in China. Most of there spinning reels and lower priced trolling reels are made there but there higher end stuff is made in America. Those engeneers were probably going to China about there spinning reels or rods.
bn, If the parts are made in China wouldn't they need to be labeled as such? Penn has gone through quite a bit of turmoil in the last year or so and it wouldn't surprise me if the person you spoke to was a disgruntled employee. The box still says "Made in America" so that's what I'm going with until proofen otherwise. |
|
| |
|
| well whatever the case is..the quality has gone down hill imo on the newer ones....
got a TE and that broke in 4 hrs of casting .. so even a reel that is $100 more isn't going to hold up any better...I do like Penns warranty though
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | guest - 10/28/2008 10:55 AM
sled, Penn makes a lot of reels in China. Most of there spinning reels and lower priced trolling reels are made there but there higher end stuff is made in America. Those engeneers were probably going to China about there spinning reels or rods.
these guys were good guys and i'll have to dig to find their business cards but the reason we met was because i had a pile of muskyhunter magazines and the book muskies on the shield. on those flights (14 hours) ... you plough through a lot of reading material and sharing is common. these guys although not musky fishermen discussed the product and component work in generalities but it had to do with bait-casters.
some of the things biz people talk about stay quiet but i'll just say that it was a pretty big project they were traveling on and had to do with an across-the-board initiative in component manufacturing. we talked at length about how to do business in china and the pitfalls that lots of companies fall into when just getting started. on one hand it didn't surprise me at all that they had some issues, but at the same time if done properly many of those things can and do get overcome and quality sourcing eventually happens when done by companies that are committed to the effort.
lots of that will change again as china becomes more expensive due to inflation, competition, shipping costs and tariff increases ... the next frontier is vietnam, russia and africa ...
where do you think the japanese and korean companies source their components?
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 734
Location: Watertown, MN | Guest
Lots of stuff are assembled in America, so yes they are "Made in America" which means assembled. How much foreign stuff is stuck into a car, Made in america, part from the World.
Troyz |
|
| |
|
Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | i remember being interested in getting a big reel for the first time during that time period and i usually get my advice from brad nelson on equipment. he uses stuff a lot and has been a good source for me when i consider a big purchase. he had the experience from his first one so i was going that route and remember specifically him telling me where to buy them because they weren't available around here at the time. ... i didn't buy one right away so some time had lagged and my regular partner andy grimm had gotten one and let me bring it to canada to try that summer ... that fall it broke on him ... thinking this was one season removed. i remember it being coincedental along with the timing and some of the discussion i had with the penn guys on the flight had to do specifically with big bait-casters used in musky fishing becoming more popular and how musky fishing is a bit different use vs. how most use these type of reels would commonly be used.
brad's conversation with a tech. supports that trip and i remember how it all made sense then to me that there was a pre-china component generation and then post-china component product which would represent what i saw in the one andy had bought and from what brad is offering as advice here.
thinking at first that it was the "best" of the best and then seeing andy break one made my choice for me ... i live so close to rollie and helens that i wanted something that i could just bring in and not have to worry about shipping off for repairs which is just the way i like to work, so i bought the 7000 abu ... it broke in it's second season but is now repaired and working fine.
bottom line is that no matter which one you pick, there are big reels that are just coming into this sport and some are making adjustments to suit the sport (ie: daiwa saltist level wind) ... but there is no "end-all" reel. they all are made by companies who source components ... component manufacture is focussed on margins and margins are fed by manufacturing companies and manufacturing companies have moved to china and now vietnam at a rate that will blow your mind ... you can trust that all of these companies are really active over there and that there are components being made in places you might perceive to be "bad" ... the best will be involved on the ground and the rest will suffer the consequences of not watching or running the operations that supply them. bulldawgs, diamondback, fig-rig, and on and on and on ...
when buying anything that you use hard it's not a matter of if you're going to run into a problem ... it's when and that's where service an warranties come in. at some point though you've simply got to understand that there is a life of a product and everytime you use it you are using up some of it's life.
guest ... you sound like you're informed ... tell us more |
|
| |
|
| Rollies now sells them too....what I do like about Penns as I said, when they do break, they will back them up...just keep that reciept and all you will have to pay for is shipping...
they all break, but as far as big reels for big blades go, this one is about as good as any in that $235 range...get them on ebay at times for 200-215 new.. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | good point and sorry i left it out ... rollie and helens has quite a wide variety of choices now for big reels so if you want to take a look at the full line-up of products and competitors most of them are in the store now. i can't remember which one carries a price tag of $540.00 .. but jim told me the other day a guy walked in and bought 3 of them! ... lots and lots of technology and money coming into this sport as a result of one or two baits ... |
|
| |
|
Posts: 8818
| I've got two seasons on my 975, pretty much exclusively pulling double 10's.
Once I figured out the weird collar thing they have to adjust the weights, my only complaint about the reel was solved.
So far it is the only reel I have owned that made it through two seasons without some sort of mechanical problem. I tried the 7000 for all of about a dozen casts, and it felt comparable to the 975, but I didn't like the handle grip.
Obviously having not owned the 7000 I can't speak to durability, but I can say that in the time I've owned the 975 I've had several other Abus fail in one way or another, and not due to lack of maintenance. All my reels get torn down, cleaned, and oiled every season, with periodic touching up throughout the year. |
|
| |
