Whoa! How Do You Stop This Thing? Put On The Brakes!

[Piscivorous Pike]

This is tweak may be considered a repair, either way what an improvement! No back lashes after the fix. Several Abu Garcia reels use this system.

On the side of the spool inside the housing is a plastic star that has 6 pins, 3 on either side of the steel drive pins that turn the spool. I had looked carefully and found that on the pins rode a plastic sleeve that upon spinning would be thrown out by centripetal force to ride the inside of the brake drum. But these sleeve have a collar that locks onto the base of the star. Two center sleeves were locked out of play, only 4 worked. I unsnapped one, adding 5 to the braking action. If I were to throw lighter baits I might add the 6th.

From that I got no change in distance or weight that reel would cast but I got no backlash even with out thumbing the spool on all types of power behind the cast. Great feature, the speed brake is adjustable for backlash folks, but they did not tell us. I thing this could become my favorite; I love the 6 to 1 retrieve ratio.

Two days ago I tried out my new Abu Garcia C4 5601 Left Hand bait cast real. I usually go to the water with 5 Shimano Spirex, 3 Abu Garcia XLT Plus, a AG 6500 and now a new Fenwick HMG and C4. I thought I would start using the bait casters more, especially now that I am making so many jerk baits, because of TU! (They twist line). All my bait casters are lefties; I cast right hand and never switch hands with a rod that way.

I had spooled 100 yards of PowerPro 30# on top of 30# Dacron backing. I had been fishing swim baits and then I threw the worst backlash I have ever thrown in 50+ years of fishing!! That spool reversed 100 yards of line, and most of it lumped up on one side of the spool. I removed the spool and picked at it with a set of dental picks for an hours then carved the nest off the spool and re-spooled some Stealth 30# onto it. Once open I found something not explained in the instruction that came with the new reel.