No question:  Tsunami, my new reel sponsor a year and a half now-   on their reels, no anti reverse.     What a Godsend.

The feature I detest the most on a spinning reel:  Anti-reverse.   If you feel the same way: Speak up.  Speak your mind.  That may be the only way to get a change in this strange fishing world.   I certainly can’t do it alone.  Believe me: I have tried.

Over the years, quality reels, about the only thing that failed on them was the anti reverse feature, putting the reel in freespool backwards and unusable.       With Tsunami:  It is a problem NO MORE.

The arguments “for” the feature to me, don’t hold up.   At best, maybe it should be offered on freshwater reels.    With Saltwater reels this feature is the most likely to fail and then you have a reel that creates a number of problems when it spins backward.    Most notably, very tangled line.

I have made my efforts to get companies to make reels without it, unsuccessfully.  I have found that I am not alone.    The only people who use anti reverse are in a small section of Wisconsin and even they admit, they don’t know how to properly set the drag on a reel.  Personally I think it is just not smart fishing.   The drags on current reels are exceptional.   That is all that is needed to release line to a fish:  Set the drag correctly!

The Daiwa Ballistic has been the best reel I have ever used.   The only thing that has failed on them?  The anti-reverse.   Talking with my servicing guy, if they eliminated that feature, the reels never break down.    I have not had to do anything else to those reels but the anti-reverse has failed on every one of them.

A recipe for a broken knuckle, from the time I was a kid I never understood the anti-reverse.     I have seen people who use the feature and reel backward.   Back to “never making sense to me” I also saw them create a rats nest of a knot but doing this.    So, I won’t ever understand the function and I just can’t see why they continue to make reels with the feature at all.

Baitcaster and conventional reels, I’ll let you all debate that on your own.   For my money, the anti-reverse on a spinning reel is outdated.

Disappoint 99% of the anglers to accommodate half a percent of the population?    Do the math.

Neil Taylor
Owner and guide:  www.strikethreekayakfishing.com
(Cell) 727-692-6345  LivelyBaits@aol.com
Owner and site administrator:  www.capmel.com

Neil Taylor
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