Shimano Speedmaster Ii Conventional Reels

I'm a published author of fishing books and have put my fair share of time on many reels. I do a lot of offshore grouper and snapper digging and own all the sizes. These reels just flat out perform and crank effortlessly. They are butter smooth! A buddy just bought a penn 2 speed and I tried it out, and all I can say it wow, these reels perform so much better. The biggest area of like is when cranking up big 20-25 gags from 130ft, and 12 pound mangrove snapper from the same, as the reel never locks up on crank like many others do. I pulled in a 24 pound gag and never stopped cranking in line, and it never felt close to locking up to where I had to pump the rod. I prefer to just crank rather than pumping the rod, and this reel feels like a winch on low speed. I tried the high speed on a 8ish pound ARS and it was jerky like the penn on low speed, but that was accidental as I forgot to engage low speed after a bait change. Great reel...thank me later! In use for 6 months to date, so I'll update after I get more time on them.

great reel at solid price. thank you.

Great reel, using it mostly for shoreline, surf casting

Reels function great. They look nice too. We are a busy charterboat and they are great light tackle offshore reels. But the paint bubbles off and Shimano has a bum warranty department and hard to deal with.