I reckon Spheros SW should be good，10000 size should be good for harbour kings。

http://www.alanhawk.com/reviews/lists.html

The okuma you have would be good for entry level kingies and occasional ones upto 15-20 kgs, but I would recommend  Braid for fishing topwater lures, 50-65lb should be enough. 

I can vouch for the BG 5000 for harbour kingies. I was a bit concerned about the 10kg drag but after advice on here I went with that, and have landed nice fish using 50lb braid (over clean bottom). Lovely smooth reel.

You can get it for about $260 online in NZ, or you could consider getting it from the very reliable Anglers Warehouse online in Australia for less than NZ$200 (landed in NZ) and use the balance to buy a nice lure or two.

This is a complete no-brainer, with them being dumped for $149 here:

http://www.fullonfishing.co.nz/contents/en-uk/p4189.html

Perfectly capable reel.

Size-wise the 65 is pretty similar to a Spheros/Saragosa 10000. The Okuma is marginally heavier, if you believe both companies published stats. The Okuma is rated for 20kg of drag vs the Shimano's 15kg; again unsure of the truth in either but both are plenty for fishing 50lb braid. The Okuma is a tiny bit faster.

The Okuma has a LOT of metal in it; the rotor, frame and sideplate.

The Shimanos have a composite rotor and frame, only the sideplate is aluminium.

The Shimanos (I'm prettttty sure) have carbon drag washers, the Okuma has felt washers on top and carbon under the spool.

The Okuma is obviously cheaper; the Shimano is likely to have better local support (although Okuma has come a long way in that regard).

Not really comparing apples with apples  when comparing catching a YFT with a kingfish.... very different habitats with fish that behave very differently. 

 

Not really comparing apples with apples  when comparing catching a YFT with a kingfish.... very different habitats with fish that behave very differently. 

 

You missed the crucial bit "for kingfish" and introduced YFT  into the discussion, you then went further saying you dont need much drag..... If kingfish behaved and were caught in the same manner as YFT you'd be right, but they don't. 

If you want fast retrieve - the only reel in your price range with anything close to the 14000 Stella retrieve rate (134cm/wind) is the Daiwa BG (5000, 6500). They are 120cm and 124cm. BUT, the 5000 has max 10kg drag, and the bigger BG about 15kg.

If you want really powerful drag (20+kg), the options include the Fin-Nors, Okuma and also Quantum Cabo FTSE (bought from Australia, you can get it in your price bracket shipped to NZ for about half what they cost in NZ). 

BUT, except for the real big berthas, they have around the 100-105cm per reel crank.

Go up to something with 115cm retrieve and 20+kg drag, and they weigh 250g more than the next model down. Can you handle that casting all day?

As Alan Hawk points out in his reviews, the stated drag and what is practical (ie. other parts of the reel can handle the stresses that level of drag pressure creates) are usually two different things.

How many people can stand in a typical fishing boat and pull against 20+kg of drag for longer than a few seconds?

Agree about the 9500 ... its absolutely huge.

Got a reasonably priced Fin_Nor 7500 combo on TM now

https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1461139602" rel="nofollow - https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1461139602

Agree with that...I got my 22.5 kg king off the rocks with a shimano baitrunner 6500 and that only had a max drag of 7kg and i didnt push it that hard.......just enjoyed that screaming drag.......the sound is amazing on that reel........admittedly....it wasnt foul ground but the drag was smooth and that was on mono as well with a piper. 

    Ive seen so many vid where people try to give it death off the rocks on a king and they get busted off.......kings are big....its hard for them to hide.........a big snapper fights more dirty i reckon.....ive been wasted by a few of them!

It depends on what the specs of the rod are, I reckon, and whether it feels nicely balanced to you. Does it have good guides which help you cast well, such as Fuji K Guides? 

You can get that reel by itself in NZ for about $290 (Marine Deals), or landed in NZ from the US (ebay) for NZ$190 (less if you have a NZ Post YouShop account in Oregon).

Often with combos, retailers appear to charge nearly the full price for the reel and throw in a low spec rod. Not always the bargain it appears. Sometimes getting separates on good deals is the better option.

But I think that reel is certainly one that would do the job for you and would be near the top of a list for me at the entry level. I'm very happy with my BG5000, which is the size down and quite a bit lighter. But I'm not targeting big kingies with it, and am using 50lb braid. The 6500 has heaps of line capacity, very fast retrieve, and about 15kg of claimed drag - arguably enough to deal with most kingies (though you've seen the debate about that above).

How much line do you need for a top water reel?

Would a couple of hundred metres be enough? I see the BG 4000 holds 280 yards of .28mm (@30lb) braid and it is a lot lighter than the larger models.

At 0.23mm it should be possible to finda 30lb braid. Tie a good knot and fish 5-75kg if you need to.

I was going to use it primarily for landbased fishing on a 2.3m Shimano T-Curve Revolution travel rod. It is a fairly soft 15-24kg rod so I won't be fishing 10kg of drag. Probably closer to 5.

There seems to be a big step up in capacity between the 4000 and 5000 (over twice the line capacity!) plus the big step up in weight.

PS. I have been using Fireline Exceed in lighter weights (6kg) and like it so was going to go to 14kg.

Why so?

Not enough drag? Not enough line capacity? Retrieve too slow?

I will be targeting Kingfish (south island) on lures so am not expecting to hook 20kg fish. 

I am tossing up between the BG4000 or 5000 but if anyone has any other suggestions for under $250 I am more than happy to look.

Not enough drag to stop them just going straight down into the rocks/weed. On the first run a kingi can pull close to its body weight in drag without much trouble. You are a bit hamstrung though because those travel rods, as you said, are pretty soft, not a lot of grunt for making the fish do what you want it to, and you're gonna be pretty limited in how much drag you can run.

The go-to cheap topwater reel is surely the Okuma Azores, fullonfishing is dumping the old silver ones (IMO the better looking...) for $149, they are way less refined and smooth than the BG but the drag is miles better, my 2c anyway.

I would chuck one on the lighter of the 2 Okuma Metaloid topwater rods and for $400 plus braid you have a setup that's hard to beat for anything less than twice the price, and capable of dealing with the majority of fish you are likely to encounter.

Unfortunately I won't have a lot of opportunity to get out so don't want to throw too much money at new gear. I already have a collection of rods and reels that don't get used enough.

I did a lot of LBG up the east coast (from Te Kaha to Hicks bay) in the 80s and 90s targeting kingies but always used overhead reels spooled with mono for casting. I have been using braid exclusively lately for all my fishing and the thought of casting poppers/sticks into the wind with an overhead spooled with braid no longer appeals to me. Getting too old and lazy for that.

The travel rod will do in the mean time as it is so easy to take and if I get smoked too often I may get motivated to up grade then.

I landed my first SI kingie off the rocks a while ago on a softbait rig (Shimano Starlo Stix rod and Abu T-Alloy 3500 reel spooled with 6kg braid) and had a ball. It had me in the weeds/rocks 3 times and took over 40 minutes to land so next time I go I don't want to be so under gunned.

I will check out the Okuma. Thanks, again.

PS. One thing I learned many years ago was that the tighter the drag was the more easily your line would pop if it touched something.

First post. Lennox Head, Australia.

Just read the first page. Is Alan Hawk's reel site popular in New Zealand?

From his info the Shimano SW10000 would be the go. (I have two.) Some of the reels being mentioned are the smaller ones in the series. For example, the Fin Nor Lethal 10000 is highly rated and all metal unlike others in the series. (Bit heavy for lure casting but it does have a proven 24kg of drag and a large line capacity.)

Regards, Rob.

I can't say I'd be keen to go kayaking or swimming in that area, with the shark attacks in recent years, but some good fishing, no doubt.

I think opinion is divided about Alan, over here, but plenty of keen fishos know about him and read his site. I think his reviews are quite useful to add into the mix of my decision making. But they do tend to get a bit over my head in terms of technical analysis. Are some of the issues he notes really going to affect me in the lifetime of my reels, given I'm not doing hard core kingie jigging etc? 

Others aren't convinced about his conclusions based on their personal experience with a particular reel. And some have picked out what they reckon are errors in his background observations.

I'm sure dyed in the wool Daiwa addicts are tired of his slamming of the magseal technology and servicing, but others can see where he's coming from.

As you can see from this thread, everybody is different in terms of budget, rod they're balancing the reel with.

I presume you're talking Saragosa when you say SW10000. Lot of fans of the Saragosas over here. Do you mean the Lethal 100? Pretty heavy reel, certainly heavier than to match my rod. But others on the forum have rated it as bullet proof and good for the money.