Bruce's Midwest Musky Fishing Site
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Lure Sites:
Eagle Tail
Mepps
Ask a question, I'll try to provide an answer...
By: Bruce Bahlmann
Questions received:
- [from: frederick ray herman - 2/22/2010]
How does the St Croix Avid reel compare to the
Calcutta 400 TE??
- [Bruce] Good question...
I've never tried their reels. I have bought their rods which are pretty nice only they tend to be heavier than other similarly priced competitors. If you have that kind of money, the best is obviously the Gloomis musky rods (get the longer one - 7' is great), and the Calcutta reels.
Note that musky fishing is extremely hard on any reel and rod...
One observation is these reels you asked about do have a high gear ratio and yet the handle doesn't look any different. This could be a problem reeling in larger bucktails. I'm just thinking out loud as the Garcia has a line that uses the higher gear ratio. While this higher ratio is great for smaller lures and for top water, it’s a huge pain for cranking large bucktails. For these, the lower ratio is best. Also note, the higher gear ratio tends to wear out faster... Lucky if you get two seasons with a frequently used high-gear ratio reel before it starts whining and has trouble casting. At that point, one needs to replace the gears. On some reels this is pretty easy to do, on others, not so easy.
Hope this helps. Sorry I couldn't provide personal experience on these reels... They must be fairly new..
- [Bruce] Good question...
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