TackleTour

14 conquest 101...

Oddly my old ct50 was a shockingly smooth reel. I went through a few gear sets over the 17 years I owned it but the last set must have been made with new tooling because it was butter. I remember comparing it to a zillion type r and fishing them side by side thinking dang this little reel is smooth. Regret selling it...

I have a Ryoga 1016h that has been "Ianized" that is smooth as butter. I just got my Conquest 50 back from him and expect awesomeness from that one too.

The smoothest reel I've fished so far has been my Calcutta TE200GT. It'll crank in anything without any problem… 1oz. spinnerbaits, deep diving cranks like the deep-six and deep-x 300, and swimbaits (biggest I've tried has been the 8" BBZ-1).

My Calcutta DC/Calais DC/Calais 200A are pretty smooth too but I still think the TE200GT wins

Smoothest I have ever owned was the New Antares 5.6:1. But I didn't like the ergonomics and way it palmed for me and got rid of it. So now my smoothest is an Ito with the brass 7:1 gears supertuned by Ian. It comes very close to the Antares smootheness

Smoothest baitcaster I have right now is a PX68 SPR with Hedgehog Air BFS bearing. Spinning the handle doesn't even feel like the gears are engaged. I own some insanely smooth highend reels but this one made me do a double take to make sure it was actually working. It's currently my Stella baitcaster.

Limited Steez
or the namiki Steez
both are butter

At the moment it's a '14 CQ-100. Buttery smooth and maintains it under load.

New Conquest
New Antares
New Aldebaran (wow!)

I have Steez EX HSL and Antares DC. Antares is smoother. No doubt.

My old Z2020H is the smoothest reel in my arsenal and i haven't even clean it once since i bought.

I don't know. Don't have the vast majority of reels listed here. Also I don't think my touch (awareness?) is nearly as fine tuned as 99.99% of you gentlemen. The first time I used my Megabass Alphas ito 103-ai I went "WOW!". Slick as snot on ice. Now I have a few reels tuned by Ian. The factory tuned Pinnacle Primmus is also very smooth...to me.

I would need one of you gentlemen to test my reels and tell me which is the smoothest. Don't think I will ever know otherwise.

However, please don't ask me to send them to you for testing. You are more than welcome to drop by and take them for a spin, tho.

Sorry to bump the old post. But this kind of topic is my favorite.

There are two kinds of smoothness baitcasting category from my collections. One is "smooth and feeling almost nothing" and the other is "smooth but still feeling you are connected".

I have the same feeling as MondayMonkey when I first received brand new 15 conquest 101HG. If this is the smoothest feeling you should get from baitcasting reel, this is the one! I even think this kind level of smooth will let you feel not connect with your reel... maybe because the tight of micro brass gear tolerance make you feel nothing with connected X-Ship bearings and pinion gears.

My brand new Daiwa SV103(built based on old zillion platform) was received yesterday and I compared side by side with my other Conquests (conquest 50, conquest 101DC, new conquest 101HG, new conquest 201). This brand new zillion is not that top level smooth as my favorite conquest 50. But it definitely falls into "smooth but still feel you are connected" category.

Happy valentines day! I wish you have received some reels today as gift

MondayMonkey wrote:Smoothest baitcaster I have right now is a PX68 SPR with Hedgehog Air BFS bearing. Spinning the handle doesn't even feel like the gears are engaged. I own some insanely smooth highend reels but this one made me do a double take to make sure it was actually working. It's currently my Stella baitcaster.

My TD Zillion Coastal is by far my smoothest reel. LW bearing, and different handle with bearings. All my Zillions have this done, but for some reason this particular one is the smoothest.

Smoothest for me are my 15 Calcutta Conquest HG, Zillion SV TW, and SV103.