I bought a Stradic ci4 last winter. Great reel. At the same time, I bought my son a Diawa Fuego LT. He’s 17 and I knew he wouldn’t take care of the reel like I would take care of mine so I wasn’t going to spend as much on his reel but I wanted him to have a good reel.
Ends up his reel is every bit as smooth as mine and actually takes less force to reel it. The Stradic is awesome but the Fuego is too and costs less than half price of the Stradic.
Here’s the kicker..... I was just looking at reels online last night because I’d like to get a couple more. The Fuego doesn’t have great reviews. There were quite a few reviews that talked about the line lay on the spool being bad and they had pictures to prove it. It did look awful and it was multiple people with reports and pictures.
So I don’t know what to do. I do have to wonder if it matters that I bought mine at a local mom and pop fishing store. Maybe they aren’t all the same? Maybe I got a great one or maybe the people that gave bad reviews got bad ones. All I can say for certain is I’d just as soon have my sons Diawa as I had my Shimano.
At the end end of the day I will likely get another Diana reel but may get a different model. They have a few different reels in the $80-$150 range.