I use Shimano Sonora 2500's for my non-panfishin'... but when I am just goin out for crappies/gills, I start out with my 5' UL cabela's tourney trail rod and my cabela's fish eagle tournament II 1000 spinning reel.

I snagged the Fish Eagle tourney II on sale and thought it'd be a nice panfish/ice fishin reel. It has been excellent so far with 4lb mono.

The real test (no pun intended) was a week or so ago when I was out panfishin, and hooked into a 4' musky. Fought it for 25 minutes on the ultralight setup and everything held up well. Brought her in to the dock 5 times, the 5th time she ran she tossed my hook (felt like getting dumped by 3 girls at the same time). Anyway. the cabela's fish eagle tournament II is a pretty decent reel for the 20 bucks I spent on it.