Non-Daiwa guy question

[mark poulson]

I grew up fishing no brakes, and then centrifugal brakes, but I've never fished a Daiwa reel with their magnetic brake spool. Do you still thumb the spool on the cast?

[Finesse Angler]

I still thumb the spool, but I set mine up to be that way. I can dial in my ct sv to not need to thumb it and still get decent distances with it though. I have to thumb my pixy almost no matter what, there are a few times I’ve gotten it dialed to a lure perfectly to not need to but it felt restricted. If you get an sv spool and want to dial it in you won’t have to thumb, however I think other daiwa spools you would probably need to not much experience outside of those two reels.

[Houndfish]

It depends on the braking system in the spool and sometimes what reel the spool is in. I do slow and stop every cast with my thumb, but even that isn't needed with some SV spools in some reels.

But in general:

Magforce V/Z: Will thumb sooner once the lure hits the "halfway" point, I keep my thumb at the ready throughout the cast, but I almost never have to use it for the first 50%.
SV: Will keep my thumb clear of the spool so it can self-correct, moving my thumb lower much closer to the end of the cast.

Unlike a lot of people I do use a little spool tension with Magforce Z spools, maybe a 1/8-1/4 turn past "no spool play", when I am using them for lighter stuff, it lets me keep the brakes lower which seems to help when I am making short casts where I can't 100% load the rod.

[mark poulson]

Thank you both for taking the time to reply. I have several Daiwa reels a friend left at my house that are still packed away. I may open one up and play with it, based on what you've said.

[eklikewhoa]

You still thumb but I feel mag brakes are more forgiving while being less restricted?

Like you can be lazy and run little braking