Meet the $100 BFS reel: The Haibo Smart

[LowRange]

This thing kept tempting me every time I was on aliexpress and at $100 it's only twice the price of my DIY Alphas spool and you get a whole reel and 2 spools for your money. Well, I finally broke down and bought one a few months ago. I mean how bad can it be?

What is it? The 50/51 size is a Chinese OEM reel with an aluminum frame, plastic side plates and carbon fiber 100mm handle with eva knobs, two low capacity light weight spools and all the stupid clickies. It's a legit BFS reel with two 10g spools and a dual breaking system. It's also pretty apparent that the DIY air spools and carbon fiber handles are from Haibo production lines so there's that mystery solved.

The good stuff:

Casting: The dual breaking is like the centrifugal and magnetic brakes of the Abu JDM finesse casters if someone described it over the telephone. Thankfully and quite unlke the Abu reels, there are both finesse orientated centrifugal and magnetic breaking on each spool. It's not one or the other but both. What this means is much like any other dual breaking reel I can set the centrifugal brakes to my sweet spot, in this case 2, turn off the magnetic dial and bomb small baits for max distance. Conversely, I can set the mag dial to max to increase control and place baits with precision when target casting. Want both distance and control? Set the mag dial to the middle setting (straight up). With my control/distance setting I can bomb 3/32 oz without touching the spool and wind has no effect on it. This reel cast light things great.

Size/weight: It's an Alphas like 6.2 oz and an Alphas like size and shape. Those who like to wrap their index finger around the face plate will notice that the reel is a bit more square up front than the naturally contoured Alphas.

Disassembly: It's pretty easy to take apart. There's just 3 screws on the handle side plate and even a pry point at the bottom of the side plate. All the little bits are logically arranged and it is easy to make since of where they belong. Very Alphas like.

The OK stuff:

Retrieve: It was very bad out of the box and after disassembly I discovered that there wasn't a single nano-particle of grease in the reel. After a good lubricating the retrieve became very OK. I am not strongly opinionated about the retrieve of the reel. The retrieve is neither good nor bad - it is just fine.


The bad stuff

It just kinda falls apart almost immediately. The centrifugal brakes are meant to be replaceable meaning that they can be removed. The problem is that they remove themselves and vanish into thin air all the time. Sometimes they fall out and tumble about inside the spool making the reel even more clicky. I think I've lost like 50% of my centrifugal brakes in a few months. I only need two and I can buy lots more cheaply so it's not a deal breaker. Heck, Abu sells whole reels with just magnetic breaking. The plastic ring which houses these centrifugal brakes is just sort of pushed up against the side of the spool. It's not even fasted together, which means that it falls off sometimes. Between the brakes falling off or the ring with whatever brakes left on it falling off, then at the absolutely worst case scenario your left with a poor mans Abu magtrax finesse reel. You can buy more centrifugal brakes and multiples of brake rings to keep the centrifugal brakes alive on both spools, so it's not like you're screwed or anything.

It's very ugly. Flat black and matte grey aren't very exciting colors. The magnetic dial has no numbering but does have a large range of adjustment, about double what most mag dials have. Oddly when the dial is turned down/back you reach a point of "off" and beyond this is just "extra off". Also, one of my spool bearings died within the 1st hour of the 1st day on the water and the free gift hybrid ceramic bearings the seller included were neither ceramic nor a hybrid of anything. I think they're a hybrid of noise and smoothness. Maybe a hybrid of hexagonal shaped balls and a race track. These thing are the most rumbly noise bearings I have ever heard. I can't believe something so small can be so loud.

Conclusion:

It's a $100 BFS reel that is a legit as they come, but it just falls apart. It's never been unfishable the time I've had it and 99% of it's problems are the centrifugal brakes which work just fine but just fall out and get lost. Great budget ned rig reel.

[Bootytrain]

Sound like alot of reel for 100$ despite the brake arms coming off so easily. Have you weighed the spools?

[LowRange]

Sound like alot of reel for 100$ despite the brake arms coming off so easily. Have you weighed the spools?

I haven't but others have (Russians) and 10g is what they come out to be. Their shallow spool is sold individually as a DIY spool for Haibo Steed and it's advertised at 9.9g. Seems to check out. The spools are built exactly like the DIY Daiwa spools but with dual breaking.


There's also another Haibo reel the OURBEST which features a super shallow lightweight spool that can supposedly cast 2.5 grams 20 meters. Whats interesting about this reels is that it has a VBS type centrifugal braking. With this centrifugal breaking being mounted to the spool shaft then it far more likely to not fall off. The problem is that its' more expensive than the Smart, has only one spool and is purely centrifugal breaking.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/The-SF-G ... ed0d2619c3


On the more lol worthy side there are a couple of mystery meat reels with light weight 13.5 gram spools, plastic frames and magnetic breaking.


A Kuying Thunder. I hear Kuying rods are decent but have no idea about their reels.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/KUYING-T ... 0665&tpp=0


A "Mr Charles" brand "T-rex"

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mr-Charl ... 8634&tpp=0

[Fishing4Fun]

Thanks for the info. But I would rather buy a BFS reel for $250 and up and have it last and feel good out of the box than buy one that feels terrible and starts falling apart early.

[silversix]

When i look at this reel, it reminds me of Walmart

[jonnimunki]

Is this not the same reel as the ardent apex?

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Ardent_A ... -APEC.html

[Loafer]

Have you weighed the spools?

I haven't but others have (Russians) and 10g is what they come out to be. Their shallow spool is sold individually as a DIY spool for Haibo Steed and it's advertised at 9.9g. Seems to check out. The spools are built exactly like the DIY Daiwa spools but with dual breaking.

Yep, this reel very popular in Russia, but you must prepared it to work: grease it, oiled it, brakes etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BntSqrxcgxE
https://youtu.be/gXqB6RL4GTs?t=357
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYinbJS294A

[LowRange]

Is this not the same reel as the ardent apex?

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Ardent_A ... -APEC.html

Yes it's the same reel, Ardent reels are Haibos now. Don't expect the Ardents to cast light weight stuff like the Smart 50/51 though.

[mark poulson]

Is this not the same reel as the ardent apex?

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Ardent_A ... -APEC.html

Yes it's the same reel, Ardent reels are Haibos now. Don't expect the Ardents to cast light weight stuff like the Smart 50/51 though.

Will the shallow Haibo spool fit the Ardent reel?

[LowRange]

Is this not the same reel as the ardent apex?

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Ardent_A ... -APEC.html

Yes it's the same reel, Ardent reels are Haibos now. Don't expect the Ardents to cast light weight stuff like the Smart 50/51 though.

Will the shallow Haibo spool fit the Ardent reel?

Maybe, but there is only one way to really know and that is to drop the whopping $25 on a spool. The only concern I would have is that the Ardent reels may be magnetic only and if this is the case, would lack the centrifugal racetrack (thing the centrifugal brakes drag on to create friction) and you wouldn't have any breaking on the reel. I need to see the inside of the non handle side plate of Ardent reel in question.

Well what if it doesn't have centrifugal brake race track, wouldn't the magnetic portion of the spool work anyway? No. The Haibo 50/51 spools sold individually as DIY spools for Haibo, such as liked below, do not have the flat inductor. You have to buy a whole reel if you want a dual breaking 10g Haibo spool and you will actually get two.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/HAIBO-ST ... 3fbf&tpp=0[/quote]

[LowRange]

I screwed up and made duplicate post trying to edit a previous post.... somehow.

Uhh... Here look Elan Tailwag reels. The budget BFS continues.

http://tailwalk.jp/english/reel/elancustom/

[MaxZmus]

I agree with your review 100%. I didn't like my Haibo Smart at first because it needed grease and the brakes and brake hub are proned to falling out. I've mentioned in another thread that its a great value finesse reel. I have the 151 model because I prefer the all around 6.5:1 ratio. I've fished it side by side with my Alphas 105 and castability is right on par for half the price. I even stuck a nice 7lbs bass on it and it handled it great. The carbontex drags are smooth. I mainly use it for chucking lipless crankbaits and it does it extremely well. It weighs 5.9oz on my calibrated scale. It is the same reel as the Ardent Apex Extreme but half the price. I HAi-ly recommend it!

[jonnimunki]

Is this not the same reel as the ardent apex?

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Ardent_A ... -APEC.html

Yes it's the same reel, Ardent reels are Haibos now. Don't expect the Ardents to cast light weight stuff like the Smart 50/51 though.

Awesome. So do you think I could get one of these and take out the centrifugal brake all together, i.e. just operate on the mag brake?

[MaxZmus]

Is this not the same reel as the ardent apex?

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Ardent_A ... -APEC.html

Yes it's the same reel, Ardent reels are Haibos now. Don't expect the Ardents to cast light weight stuff like the Smart 50/51 though.

Awesome. So do you think I could get one of these and take out the centrifugal brake all together, i.e. just operate on the mag brake?

Yes, the $25 DIY spool will fit any of the Ardent Apex series as they are all the same frame and side plates. Your Ardent Apex should have the dual centrifugal and magnetic braking system. I took all the brakes off of my spool and only left two on, then I use the magnetic dial for fine tuning. Remember to oil the brake race well to cut down on noise during casts.

[reznor]

diameter spool? has it a floating spool as haibo luna?TIA