Suggestions On A New Shimano Egg Beater

[Bill Babler]

I have never had a Stradic bind and I fish them over 300 days a year. I have 110 Shimano reels, and have never had any sort of problem with my Stradics.

The Symetre will bind if it is fished in hard rain or its internal gears get wet. Have no idea why. As soon as it drys out, it is fine. It is all Beck fishes for the most part and has no problems. He has a team deal with Diawa if that tells you anything, and his gear is at least 50% discounted to him and he fishes Shimano Symetre at full price.

My spinning gear completely consists of Stradics and Sustains, as they are my livelyhood.

[edwin]

Great feed back Bill..tnx!!!

[Gavin]

Guess it just depends on how you use them...If you keep a Shimano spinning reel high and dry in a rod locker or on in the relatively dry confines of a shiny bass boat while lake fishing, you probably wont have many problems with them......Toss a Shimano spinning reel in a canoe or kayak, and wade fish with it.... Where it get all kinds of water and slop on it every trip. They are gonna bind on you. Who wants a reel that doesnt work well when its soaked? I dont....Thats why I dont buy them anymore. Cheers.

[cyclonebass]

The bottom of the older Stratic reels have a small opening or port that is used for lubricating the reel. Unfortunately, this port will also allow water in during rainstorms and sometimes cause the reel to bind. I have a number of stradics and I have had a couple of them bind during storms. You can shake the reel to force the water out of the port, and they will work again. The new Stradic CI4 and Stella do not have this port and do not have the binding problem. I own both a stella and stradic CI4 and neither one has had a problem in the rain.

[Bill Babler]

If you can fish and afford a Stella, you are my hero.

[eric1978]

Guess it just depends on how you use them...If you keep a Shimano spinning reel high and dry in a rod locker or on in the relatively dry confines of a shiny bass boat while lake fishing, you probably wont have many problems with them......Toss a Shimano spinning reel in a canoe or kayak, and wade fish with it.... Where it get all kinds of water and slop on it every trip. They are gonna bind on you. Who wants a reel that doesnt work well when its soaked? I dont....Thats why I dont buy them anymore. Cheers.

I'm with Gavin and Ham on this one. I love my Stradics and wouldn't want to use anything else...until they're wet. Someone said no one believes it until it happens to them. I was one of those people. You have to be really careful in a canoe to keep paddle drips off them, and if it's raining, you can just hang 'em up. Never had a problem with Shimano baitcasters, though, and the Stradics run perfect when dry.

[eric1978]

If you can fish and afford a Stella, you are my hero.

I had a Stella a few years ago, polished it with a diaper for a few months, sold it and bought two Stradics that aren't too pretty to use. The Stellas aren't for fishing, they're for mounting in platinum and wearing around your finger.

[cyclonebass]

i found a new stella on Ebay from a California power seller for half off last winter when the recession was hitting them hard. Used some income tax money. I could not have afforded it otherwise. I also found a new humminbird SI on Ebay cheap. I was scared to buy on ebay because of fraud, but both purchases worked out. If you are in the market for new gear, it never hurts to look on ebay.

[eric1978]

i found a new stella on Ebay from a California power seller for half off last winter when the recession was hitting them hard. Used some income tax money. I could not have afforded it otherwise. I also found a new humminbird SI on Ebay cheap. I was scared to buy on ebay because of fraud, but both purchases worked out. If you are in the market for new gear, it never hurts to look on ebay.

I buy the majority of my fishing gear on Ebay, not to mention all kinds of other stuff. There are incredible deals to be found there and I've never had a single problem over the course of hundreds of transactions, buying and selling. You can always avoid fraud on Ebay by buying from reputable sellers with solid feedback profiles, and by paying with paypal, which offers buyer protection against fraud.

The Stella is a very fine reel. I used mine a few times and was blown away by how smoothly it performed. But you can almost get two Stradics for the price of one Stella, and to me the difference between the two reels is not that great, except the Stella is prettier and slightly higher quality. If Shimano came out with a reel that was supposedly better than the Stella, the Stella would still be a great reel, even though there would be one better. Same goes for the Stradic now.

[RSBreth]

I'm another "Shim-bindo" victim. Won't use the Shimano brand spinning reels after that.

I have had great luck with several Bass Pro spinners from old model Pro Qualifiers' to the JM Signature that was mentioned. Another great one these days is the Pflueger Supreme. Fantastic reel for 100 clams. None of those have failed on my like the Shimanos' did.