Penn International Torque Conventional Reels

When one picks up a Penn International Torque Reel for the first time, two things are very apparent; this reel is indestructible, and this reel is heavy.  Penn of old had a reputation of building reels that last several years.  People are still fishing with old squidders, jigmasters and of course, international reels.  Over the past few years, Penn's quality had dropped, introducing reels made overseas (the Captiva series are terrible).  Not all of those made in china reels are bad.  the Slammer series, including the new 760 Penn Slammer are great, durable reels.  

In an effort to compete with Shimano, and Avet, Penn released the Made In America Torque series reels, deciding to go with durability over weight.  While the Torque might not be perfect, it is a giant step in the the right direction for Penn.  The gears in the reel are four times the size of those in the Shimano Trinidad.  The cast control feature on the 100 is great.  These reels are extremely powerful!

Having held the soon to be released Penn Torque 300LD, i know it will be a winner.  The reel has a tremendous amount of power and the new lever drag system is great. 

Sincerely,

Josh

J&H Closeouts

www.jandhcloseouts.com

(866) 506-6600

Shimano Reel Rumor #2

Avet reels have been out for about 5 years or so and have become extremely popular.  It seems nowadays, everyone is looking for smaller more powerful reels at reasonable prices.  Avet slid into that category with little competition and made the good choice of anodizing their reels in several different colors (very reminiscent of the launch of the original iMac computer). 

We get emails and phone calls for pink, orange, purple and black reels on a daily basis and sell a large number of Avet reels.  As i mentioned earlier, they really don't have much in the way of competition.  There's the Daiwa Saltist, which is a nice reel, but a bit heavy, the Shimano Tekota is nice if you want a levelwind, and Penn has nothing unless you're talking about the Torque reels, but they are around $400. Yes, there are more shimano reels (trinidad, tyrnos, and torium), but they are either more expensive, or have very high gear ratios (which is great in california, but not in the Northeast).  Also, the tyrnos 2-speeds, while similar in price,  are significantly heavier than the avets.  Newell is a competitor but they have even more production problems than avet does. 

Now, to our rumor: From what i am hearing, Shimano is going to introduce a saltwater metal reel to compete with avet.  should be an anodized reel with similar capacities, and knowing shimano, should not have some of the flaws that the avets have.  just as a note, the major design flaw in the avet reels is that there is no stop to the drag setting.  what i mean by this is that you can turn the tension knob far past the point where the reel binds up from having too much tension on the spool.  You can't turn the handle and this leads to many broken reels from novice fishermen.

Sincerely,

Josh

J&H Closeouts

www.jandhcloseouts.com

(866) 506-6600