Hey guys I'm looking at buying a new heavy duty spinning reel for poppering/stickbaiting/jigging etc. I Would love a Stella or Saltiga but not for the price tag, so I'm undecided between the Shimano Saragosa 18000 and the Daiwa Saltist 6500. Just about all my reels i fish with are shimano. I had a Daiwa viento a while back and it was a piece of **** so I'm a little unsure about daiwa, even though I've heard only good things about their top end spinning reels. There's not alot of difference between the 2 in specs other than the gear ratio of 6:2:1 the saltist has over the Saragosa's 4:9:1, also more max drag with Saltist (33kg) Saragosa (20kg). So just wanting to hear from anybody out there who uses these reels and people's thoughts on them. Maybe there's something else worth looking at? I think the Saragosa retails for $500 at fish city, Saltist a little less maybe??

cherz bro check out ur email inbox

Keen to know too

Been using a saltist 5000H for awhile now, It's no stella or saltiga but for the price I've been really happy with it. not as smooth to wind as the saragosa but much better drag, run pe8 on mine. haven't caught anything massive with it but has been given plenty of work outs on kings to ~23kg and fought 3 YF tuna in the 20-40kg range with no issues 

I was looking into the saltist 5000 too, as per said I think the 6500 is quite a big reel and the 5000 still has the same 33lb drag as the 6000 and 6500. 

hey aaron

Got a new Saragosa 14000f on trademe for $370! bloody bargin  Took it out the other week for a play with a popper at bowentown, only got a big kahawai on it but yeah very happy with it so far.

MY CHOICE I WOULD GO THE SARAGOSA

Id go saltist as retrieve is better...15kg is plenty, i doubt the other would last long at 20 anyway...

Not sure about Saragosa but Saltist has nice big chunky bail arm that is manually operated so no surprise accidental closures and subsequent disasters when casting.