Post by Robert Burton on Feb 3, 2006 10:01:15 GMT -6
This is a cassette system reel. That is to say that instead of spare spools we have pop in and out cassettes.
I bought them at the Fishing Hole last winter but I cannot remember for how much. But they seemed reasonable. It comes with 2 cassettes and ala carté they are $13.
I tried to find the MSR on them but the Martin site doesn't list them as a product and the online Fishing Hole cataloge doesn't list them either. An online Ebay store lists them at $59.95 USD and that seems to ring a bell price wise.
A selling point is that the VFR 5/6 and the 7/8 are the same reel with different printing and the cassettes are a different arbour. Basically you could buy one, say the 7/8, and buy the cassettes for the 5/6 seperately thereby having 1 reel that could be used with 2 line and rod sizes and any number of different line types. That seems very cool whether it was designed this way of not.
(when I bought them Stu wasn't there so I was on my own so I have the 5/6 and the 7/8 reels)
The reels performed well, changing cassettes on the go was easy both stream side and in a tube. The drag is ok. The drag adjustment knob is small like the kind you find on a click drag. But it is an offset infinte drag similar in feel to the Pflueger Trion, Loomis Venture or any of the Prestige reels but those reels have big knobs. Aside from that the drag settings seem to be fine though there seems to spots near the top end where the amount of drag applied increases too much in relation to the amount turned. That could be just a function of the small knob.
All in all I think this is a very useable reel at a good price and, if used as stated above, a marvelous deal. This is assuming that they are still a market item.