The Spinning Reel I Bought to Replace a Worn-Out Favorite

The reel that quit on me last February was not an expensive one. I bought it used at a tackle shop over in Mooresville sometime in the late nineties, fished it two or three mornings a week for a lot of years, and it finally started grinding on the retrieve around the third cast of a cold morning below the dam. I knew the sound. Metal on metal, with a little grit in it.

I thought about rebuilding it. I have rebuilt plenty of things. But the parts were getting hard to order, and the drag had gone soft the summer before, and a soft drag on a catfish is how you lose a good fish at the boat. Denise asked me why I was frowning at the workbench. I told her my reel died. She said, well.

So I did what I do. I read for two weeks, ordered nothing, read some more, and then went and put my hands on a few. What I came home with was the KastKing Sharky in a 3000 size, spooled with twenty pound braid, mounted on a 7-foot medium spinning rod I already owned. That rod had been sitting in the garage for years. It finally has a reel that matches it.

I want to be clear about why I picked that size. My catfish fishing on the Catawba is mostly below the dam, in current, with a chunk of cut bait and enough weight to hold bottom. You do not need a giant reel for that. You need one that holds line, takes a little grit, and gives line smoothly when a fish makes a run. A 3000 does all of that and does not make the rod feel like a fence post.

Here is what the box says, in plain terms. Ten plus one stainless steel bearings. A 6.2 to 1 gear ratio, which picks up line quick when a fish swims back at the boat. On the 2000 and 3000 sizes the drag is a double disc carbon fiber stack rated to 33 pounds, and the body is what KastKing calls Nylitech, a composite they say resists compression and impact better than the older material. I am not going to pretend I can test compression resistance in my garage. I can tell you the body has not flexed or creaked on me.

First trip out was a cold one. I launched at the public ramp, ran upriver, and fished a slack seam below the dam with the trolling motor holding me in place. The reel cast clean and the drag started smooth instead of that grab and skip you get from a cheap stack of washers. No fish that morning worth mentioning. But I came home, rinsed the reel, hung the rod up, and felt like I had bought the right thing.

The drag started smooth instead of that grab and skip you get from a cheap stack of washers. That is the difference I paid for, and it is the difference I notice every trip.

Nine months later I have a fair read on it. I have fished it through spring, summer, and into the fall, two or three mornings a week when the weather let me, and most Saturdays. It has ridden in the jon boat, in the truck, and in the rain once when I misjudged the sky. It gets rinsed with fresh water after every trip and a drop of oil about once a month, same as every other reel I own.

The drag is the part I would talk about first. Carbon fiber washers are nothing new, but the double disc stack on this size is smooth through the whole range and it holds where you set it. I have had it down low for a wary fish in clear water, and up higher when I needed to turn one away from a snag, and it did not slip or seize either way. The star adjuster was stiff for the first month. It has loosened up.

Casting is fine. The spool is what KastKing calls a long cast design, and I believe it helps with braid, mostly in how the line comes off clean instead of wanting to loop. I am not going to tell you it added ten yards to my cast, because I did not measure and I do not trust anybody who says they did.

Two complaints. It is not a light reel. On a 7-foot rod it balances fine, but if you are holding it all day on a dock you will feel it by afternoon. And the handle, while it is aluminum and has not loosened on me, is thinner than I like when my hands are cold and wet. Small things. I have fished with worse for a lot longer.

Tyler was with me one Saturday in June when a channel cat took the bait and made a run. He is ten and he wanted to hold the rod. I let him. The drag did its job while a ten year old held on and grinned, and that is about the best review a reel can get from me.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that most reels at this level are fine, and that the differences live in the small parts. Bearings that stay smooth after a season. A drag stack that does not grab. A body that does not flex when you lean on it. That is what you are paying for, and you cannot feel any of it standing in the aisle at the store.

I would tell you not to buy a 5000 for river catfish unless you are fishing heavy current with heavy weight, because then you are just carrying ounces you do not need. A 3000 on a 7-foot medium rod is a sensible setup for the Catawba, and it is what I would put in the boat again tomorrow.

And I would tell you to rinse it. Every trip. Fresh water over the spool and the reel seat, then a drop of oil once a month on the handle and the bail. Nine months in, mine still turns like it did the first week. Whether that is the reel or the rinse, I could not tell you, but doing both has never hurt anybody.