Shimano Stradic CI4+ at Bass Pro/Cabela's for $149

[Schmoopie]

They are on sale, but out of stock online already and people are calling the stores and reserving the ones in stock in the stores. If you want one, call now.

They are also running an in-store promo to buy a gift card and get 10% off the cost of the gift card. I'm not sure how long it takes to activate, but you might want to buy a gift card on the way in, do your shopping and hope it's active when you're ready to check out.

They have the Daiwa Regal on sale for $49.99 as well. If anyone has personal experience with either of the reels, I'd love to hear it.

[forrest r]

Bought a diawa regal in the beginning of april this year. Did a lot of testing with it and I paired it with a diawa 5 1/2' aird rod to use for kayak fishing. The regal has been a fantastic reel for the $$$. Been fishing with either 1/64oz or 1/32oz jigs on 4# mono and have easily caught 400+ fish so far.

Been targeting bluegill and crappie & it does extremely well with them.
[IMG][/IMG]

No problem with perch.
[IMG][/IMG]

I really like the drag on the regal's, very easy to fine tune and allows you keep pressure on larger fish while protecting the light lines from stretching or breaking. Every now and then I end up with fish like this 19" catfish on the line with the regal.
[IMG][/IMG]

Or this 18" bass
[IMG][/IMG]

Lately I've been fishing weed beds in 4' to 5' of water catching perch, crappie , bluegill and bass. The weeds are starting to get thick, grow tall/strong and it's getting difficult to reel the fish in. It's no fault of the reel & has everything to do with my poor selection of line and area to fish. That regal reel actually did extremely well considering the conditions I was using it in. What was happening was every time I hooked onto a bigger fish they'd run for the bottom. Using 4# test mono (triline xl smooth) the drag was set so the line wouldn't stretch or break. The fish would head to the bottom then run. When they ran they'd get tangled in the weeds. I'd keep pressure on the line but that pressure was actually on the weeds and I lost a lot of big fish that day. I still managed to get this 13" crappie and these bluegill in the kayak.
[IMG][/IMG]

The drag on that diawa regal kept me and the line in the game, some of those bigger fish I fought for +/- 2 minutes fighting the fish and the weeds.

I like fishing the weed beds & I like using trout magnets (1/64th oz) so I switched over to 8# braid. The regal 1000 that I'm using has a pretty good range to it's drag maxing out @ 11#. Considering that the diawa rg 2500 reels that I use have a drag that maxes out @ 9#.

I'm sure everyone has their favorite spotted puppy, I'm no different. I did a lot or reading/studying before buying a diawa regal reel. Bought it to fish in heavy cover, stump fields & weed beds using light line. that regal reel has performed well enough that I'm going to buy a 2nd regal 1000 to put on a 7' ul rod.

[BobC]

Nice report and great fish.
Bob