[Gerry Zagorski]

I was down in Florida recently fishing for Tarpon. We chartered a few days and rented a boat for some others.... I needed one more set up for fishing on our rental boat so I picked one up based upon the suggestion of one of the Tarpon charter guys down there who fishes these reels exclusively.

The reel is capable of 30 pounds of drag, which is a lot for a spinning reel of it's size and price. Some people are using them for jigging and popping Tuna. It also has a sealed drag and bearing system that is great for protecting the internals from salt water. We jumped a 125 plus pound Tarpon on it and the drag was very strong and smooth.

This reel is probably overkill for most inshore fishing here in NJ so if I were buying one for inshore, I'd probably go with one of the smaller and lighter models.

Not sure what the issue is with the live lining drag being set so tight. You might want to question Penn support about that. If your are dead sticking on a boat or in a surf spike, that feature comes in very handy so I would get it checked out.

Overall seems like a great reel for the price since most other higher end spinners in it's drag class are double the price