Popper and Topwater Fishing - SW Concept Saragosa

We have been very lucky to over the years to have worked very closely with Shimano on various levels from being customers to dealers and now to be involved in Field Testing Shimano products. Shimano has been a brand that I have used all of the fishing career and it is in my opinion the best fishing brand on the market.

With us fishing in a unique part of the world with monster GTs, high salinity and temperatures, Shimano has asked us to help Field Test products and give the products as much stick as possible and report back! For us this is a great honour to have been asked to help field test and it is really great to see and test products before they become available on the market. Now after a few months the Saragosa has been launched so we can post about the Field Test. For this test we were sent the new Saragosa SW 20000 and 10000. When the models were sent we were coming to the end of our season but we did do a couple of trips up to the Musandam Northern Oman to test the reels and we were quite surprised by the reels. The first thing is you cannot compare any reel to a Stella as it is the best. So you have to clear the mind and use the reel for its intended use and market. I paired the 20000 with a Carpenter Monster Hunter 80H with PE8 Sunline Monster and the 10000 I paired up with the Carpenter Endless Passion 85/36 with PE6 Sunline Monster.

I use Stella on all my GT reels so it was a different feel to be using the Saragosa's but after a few casts and feeling the reel out I got used to the reel and started to fish properly. A few things that I felt is that the retrieve ratio was a bit slower and also the drag was now where near a Stella, but this is obvious as it is about a USD300 reel (not sure market price) and not a USD1,000 reel. I managed to catch a few GTs but mainly smaller fish. Then on one of the last days of our liveaboard trip I hooked up to a decent fish and the fish took off like wild fire and with the looser drag I had to palm the fish to get it under control, but once the fish was under control it was a good fight and with the lighter drag it was really good fun. I landed a nice 122cm GT on the 20000

Then on the 10000 I hooked up to what I thougth was a fair sized fish in a very strong 5 knot current with some decent sized swell. The fish took in shallow water and did a big run with the current into deeper water. On the 10000 with PE6 I let the reel take all the pressure and did not touch the reel. I got the fish under control and fought the fish back to the boat letting the reel do all of the work. I got up a nice smaller GT that was hooked in the side of the head and hence the strong runs. A nice smaller GT on the 10000 and really enjoyed the fight. I'll post the video next.

In all I think they are 2 great entry level GTs reels. I feel their retrieve ratio is slower but when I thought about it this reel can also be used for jigging. This would mean that if you wanted to start GT fishing or you only fish for GTs in a blue moon this would be a cost effective reel to use and has enough power to land decent fish. But the beauty of this reel is that you could also use it for jigging and so you could have one reel doing to styles of fishing. I would not fish for GTs everyday with it but I was pleasantly surprised and will recommend this to someone wanting to enter the world of GT fishing but can't buy a Stella.

Cheers,
Nick