I purchased this reel more than a year ago after a St Petersburg trip with Hubbard's Marina with focus being heavy tackle. My wife complained that the gear was to heavy and uncomfortable but she's a trooper and powered through it. I needed lightweight gear to keep my fishing partner. I found Seigler sgn and signature series what a difference paired with a blackhole graphite slow pitch jigging rod did wonders. I have since fished in gulf shores, Alabama and Myrtle Beach SC and caught a decent amount of Grouper Vermillion and Red Snapper. The signature series is a level above as far as smoothness drag and power. You can literally feel every nibble, so when you feel the hit point the rod down and let the reel do the work.

I stop by a fairly decent sized tackle store on long island to keep up with new products and get a feel for them when visiting a friend for holidays. While fumbling around with these reels I immediately liked the way almost all of them felt in the hand and the smoothness. The only thing I didn't like about this brand was the surf casting model because of the no crossbar at the top, but they told me it casts a mile. Could not overcome the feeling that i had seen these reels before even though i didn't recognize the name, and said that to the guy behind the counter. He responded to me that they used to be named truth reels, and release reels before that and a light bulb went off. A guy we used to fish with a few years back used to bring his truth reel out and cast a really good distance, and these are basically the same just rebranded, just more powerful.