Top dollar saltwater reel

I used the Daiwa Saltiga conventional reel before, and reviewed it here a couple of years back. The Saltiga is good but the price is a bit of a killer for a working man like me. I then got a couple of Saltist reels. Basically between the Saltiga and the Saltist, there is really not much difference, except for minor cosmetics plus certain major points. Mainly two things i noticed; the rod clamp on Saltist, being the cheaper version, is made of black plastic. Secondly, the Saltist has 4 ball bearings compared to the Satiga's total of 7 ball bearings. From now on, I will just talk about the Saltist.

Overall, it is still made of one piece machined aluminum frame, with the reel foot being riveted to the main body. Just like its more expensive cousin, this reel is solidly built, and the cranking handle with oversized knob can be adjusted either for speed cranking or extra torque, with the basic tool supplied. I have filled the reel with about 350 yards of 80 lb Stren braid on the high speed 40 for fishing in water depths of up to 600 feet. Bear in mind that despite the large line capacity, the reel is no bigger than a PENN 309. Yet it packs enough power to fish for hard fighting species like giant trevally or samsonfish. A friend of mine used it and brought up samsonfish of about 70 lbs in Western Australia. So no questions about the reel being tough.

Plus the star drag, a multi-disk wet drag system, is able to be set to about 22 lbs drag pressure. Mind you that is a lot of drag for most fishing scenarios. I should remind that having owned most Daiwa reels, I find that their drag is reliable but needs some extra greasing and breaking in for the drag to function smoothly. For me, dressing the drag washers with good quality grease like Cal's drag grease works a treat and improves the reel's reliability. The lever to freespool the reel is placed on the right side, similar to a lever-drag reel, and is well-designed and easy to operate. The clicker button on the left is made of metal, and slides up or down to set the clicker alarm. This feature is handy for freelining livebait., Could be a problem if you are using thick gloves fishing in cold climates. But not a problem for me who fishes in the tropics.

With a high gear ratio of 6.4 : 1 and smooth cranking and no line guides to bother, the reel is really suitable for high speed jigging of heavy metal slabs. It can also be used for bottom fishing, trolling or freelining livebait. The Saltist 40 would be slight difficult to palm for those with small hands and the smaller size 30 would be more suitable for them. However, the 40 makes a better all-rounder workhorse reel due to its line capacity. So far my Saltist reels have been used for about 200 trips in the past 2 years and only with minimal washing and oiling, they have not skipped a beat and continue to work.

If you have US$200 budget and need a good all-rounder overhead saltwater reel, this is one of the best deals you can get.