Stella Blowing Up

[Noelm]

I reckon 95% of all buyers will never see enough action to ever have to worry about quality reels falling to bits, getting spooled and pulling 50Kg of drag for fish after fish is usually the stuff of dreams in a pub after a few beers.

[GPB]

If Tackle Wharehouse is coming out with that crap they have lost me .
I have fished with a lot of HD Jiggers and Popperers from all over the world using Stellas and Saltigas on 20-40kg Kingies and 20-50kg GT's, with no standouts in the breakage dept from either, actually no problems I can recall except I had an issue with one of my old Stellas on one of my Nomad trips where a nut came loose in the rotor and it jammed, sent it to Dunphy's where it was fixed and cleaned up under warranty, no problem.
As far as overheads for jigging? been there done that, happily jigging for 7 years with a Stella

[devocean]

Mate i have a Stella 4000 and a Stella 18000, they are both absolutely un real unbreakable reels. If you want testament to how good they are and how much punishment they can take check out #########.com forum. The guys on this forum are hard core GT fishermen that catch big GTs 40 -60kg fish and travel all over the world to catch em- malaysia, New Caladonia, Japan and some spots which are that far removed from the outside world it isnt funny.
They also jig for big dog tooth red bass etc.
They all use stellas mate as they are pretty much the only reel that can handle this type of punishment long term utilising that much drag.
That guy who gave you that info has no idea.

[devocean]

GT Popping are the words missing

[bluefin59]

As nolem said most of the people that own these reels will never put them to a real test of what they will do on a long term basis and as gpb obviously has had some experience at hardcore use then his opinion would probably be more useful to your cause ...matt

[seastorm]

Maybe the Stella reels that have shit them self are the fakes coming in from overseas they are also being sold on EBAY, the fake Stella 6000 can be bought for $145 US and then people are paying $600 + on ebay for them.

[banshee]

A point that is lost on most when talking longevity is that while a lot of wear/stress happens during the fight with high drag settings equaly as detrimental is the jigging itself (dry drops/retrieves),these reels go through more revolutions with anything up to 500g pulling on them in a single trip than an ordinary reel would see in a season,a lesser reel can become tired with relatively few fish under the belt.

[NAGG]

Hi Nagg

So what makes a good quality overhead reel for jigging? Will overheads with the levelwind feature do the job?

If I was to get back into jigging - I would be buying a narrow spooled overhead with no level wind.

Chris

[sleepygreg]

My head aches when i think about the days spent jigging with Penn Inters and 15kg mono (and the days in between spent at the gym trying to get fit enough to do that). Speed is not important....the fish are only in a limited 'target area' no matter what depth you are fishing. High geared reels are harder to fight fish with than low geared reels. I wish I had the reels available today way back then when deep water jigging started (late 70's). A narrow bodied Saltiga OH with 50lb braid would be a lot more preferable to my 20T and 30T Internationals spooled with 10kg and 15kg mono.

Forget level wind....just more things to go wrong. Dont fill the spool to the max....only 3/4 fill it with braid...then level laying the line is not so critical...braid will general find its own reasonable level.

[Jigsrule]

Thanks heaps fellas for all the feedback and sharing your experiences on this topic. Obviously it is not a topic for everyone as not everyone can talk high end reels but nevertheless it is invaluable information. When it comes time to upgrade (hopefully in the not too distant future), even with all this good info, I think the decision wont be an easy one.

[deepfried]

Thanks heaps fellas for all the feedback and sharing your experiences on this topic. Obviously it is not a topic for everyone as not everyone can talk high end reels but nevertheless it is invaluable information. When it comes time to upgrade (hopefully in the not too distant future), even with all this good info, I think the decision wont be an easy one.

With both reels so closely matched and well regarded i would find it hard to go saltiga based purely on their price compared to the stella. They are 20 - 30% dearer for a reel comparable to the stella in performance. Bit hard for me to admit that one as 90% of my reels are daiwa but the saltiga range is just way to pricey compared to the Stella and esp when compared to there own catalina which is about half the price of the satiga.

[NAGG]

My head aches when i think about the days spent jigging with Penn Inters and 15kg mono (and the days in between spent at the gym trying to get fit enough to do that). Speed is not important....the fish are only in a limited 'target area' no matter what depth you are fishing. High geared reels are harder to fight fish with than low geared reels. I wish I had the reels available today way back then when deep water jigging started (late 70's). A narrow bodied Saltiga OH with 50lb braid would be a lot more preferable to my 20T and 30T Internationals spooled with 10kg and 15kg mono.

Forget level wind....just more things to go wrong. Dont fill the spool to the max....only 3/4 fill it with braid...then level laying the line is not so critical...braid will general find its own reasonable level.

Ahhh the pioneer days ....... kings down at the Banks , the Peak , Montague Island - jigging iron ... I knew a few blokes that were into that scene - Amazing times.
Fortunately .... tackle progressed when I was introduced to the joys of the sport ...... but it still involved big lumps of steel (coffins) 7ft rods , rapid rod action & a fair bit of speed.
It certainly would have been nice to have todays tackle

Chris

[leelee]

Both have failures, but depends on how hard they are fished. People always talk about fishing 15kg+ of drag whilst jigging but 80% of people have never done it, although they beleive they have That kind of pressure week in week out eventually takes its toll on gear. In comparing longevity a Stella will have less problems and the newer SW's are far superior.

I have a heap of mates who travel around the world to jig for tuna, YFT, SBT NBT and Doggies and they all use Stella's.

They all blow up when fished on the breaking edge.

Me personally, I will use any Daiwa reel up until a 3500hd certate. Anything over that well I start looking at Stellas. For the record I have owned and used saltiga's.

Also here is a review on the new Saltiga. Have a good read of it and have a look at the same guys review on the Stella. Its an unbiased review -

http://stripersonline.com/surftalk/s...d.php?t=768370

Cheers

Lee

[Noelm]

My head aches when i think about the days spent jigging with Penn Inters and 15kg mono (and the days in between spent at the gym trying to get fit enough to do that). Speed is not important....the fish are only in a limited 'target area

aahh, the memories, way back when jigging was new, my jig reel was a 4/0 Senator, spooled (half full) with 40lb mono, a JS980 rod, and home made jigs (and some with the hooks dangling from a dacron loop from the top hole) so that "new invention" is as old as the hills, we found a treble on the bottom hole (how old tech) resulted in far better hook up rates, I found an old jig in the garage the other day, might take a picture of it and post it here, and guess what, it was one with the dacron loop through the top hole and a straight hook of some description.

[Noelm]

I just remembered something, only the rich guys ( like Greg?) could afford Internationals, we only had Senators, some has polikanskys, some Penn jigmasters. My mate had an old Furuno paper sounder, in his "big" 15' Easy Rider, we had to use land marks and hope, fished out of an old 14' Dehaviland offshore with a pissy 40HP mariner, heady days indeed!