AFTER 24 months of use by a busy Sydney fishing charter business, and a year of punishment on board a professional kingfish boat, the Fin-Nor Offshore 6500 spin reel has reportedly come through with flying colours.
The Fin-Nor Offshore 6500s have been doing hard service for over two years on board the charter boats of Craig McGill’s Fishabout Tours in Sydney.
McGill said, “We’ve been using the Offshore 6500s on our Fishabout charters since 2009. They have been used for live baiting, trolling and casting lures for kingfish, bonito, jewfish, Australian salmon and cobia. It’s an incredible effort for a spin reel to handle that much constant charter fishing, rough treatment and day-to-day exposure to the elements. It doesn’t take us long to find any shortcomings in reels and we’re amazed by our Offshore 6500s having withstood the punishment for two years and still be performing so close to their original condition.”
Commercial kingfisherman Drew Mudaliar reports that his Fin-Nor Offshore Spin 6500 reel has endured a full year of jigging and live baiting — more than 200 days at sea, catching more than 500 kingfish with the drag set at 12kg — all without need of a service.
Mudaliar’s commercial fishing operation in Eden, NSW, specifically targets kingfish using live baiting and metal jigging techniques.
“This reel has me baffled. I’ve never had a reel fish so hard for a whole year without need of maintenance. The drag is still strong and smooth, just like new,” Mudaliar said.
The Fin-Nor Offshore spin reel range includes six models from the 4500 to the massive 9500. The body and spool are aluminium and the impressive 11-disc stainless steel and cotton/carbon fibre drag system is capable of 30kg in sizes 6500 and up.
The drive gear, pinion gear and centre shaft are all stainless steel, and the gear ratio is a powerful 4.4:1.
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