Review of the Shimano Tekota 600HGA. What makes the Tekota the best catfishing reel on the planet?

Buy once and not worry about if the pawl or reel seat is going to break.

You got that right buddy. I spent a small fortune on repairing those Abu 6500 every year. Have spent zero on repairing the Tekotas.

Best reels I have found. Chris cost me a lot of money once he turned me onto these reels. Haha. Plus the Mad Katz.

Going to try to head to the coast in October to use these on some bull reds

Lol Matt!! You can actually thank me for saving you money by switching to Tekotas because now you have reels that will last a lifetime instead of reels that have to be repaired often or completely replaced. An Abu 6500C3 catfish special is $150 and the catfish pro is $200-225. They a great reels but we all know the pawl and worm gear issues those have always had and 1 repair job and your well over the cost of a Tekota. These are not entry level reels but they are well suited for guys who fish hard and fish often for big fish and want a product that will last.

I have a new 600 Tekota on a new MadKats green Goblin and this setup is freak'n awesome...

I got 6 of those set ups as well and they are my favorites Rowdy. I forgot them last trip as I had taken them out of the boat and set them up as a backdrop for The Slime Show with Matt Knight. Luckily I had 6 puzzles and orange crush on the boat so didn’t have to go back home.

Chris, like many other you have influenced over the years, I have been enamored with the Mad Katz/Shimano Tekota combos. When I got Dock Holiday, I needed (wanted) to change to the Venom 2.0 to match the colors on the boat (don't judge y'all). Anyway, I have 8 venom 2.0 all fitted with the Tekota 600HGA. Love love love them! BUT... I now had 6 of the green signature series without reels. So I thought about it and I wanted to set them up for anchor fishing like catching eaters in the spring up shallow. So I bought 6 of the Ancient Mariner 6000 reels. I realing like them they are small and light. They hold plenty of line and they cast a country mile.

They have one huge draw back compared to the Tekotas. The retrieve rate on the Tekotas is insane, it specs at 39 inches per revolution. The AM 6000 is less than half that. They take forever to reel in. Yes they will probably due for a while asd they are not my everyday rigs and I don't use them near as much as I do the Venom 2.0 with the Tekotas. But as money allows, I want to get Tekotas back on those as well.

Another thing about the set ups, I don't know if anyone else has this problem but the aluminum reel seats on rods, all of them I've used not just Mad Katz, never seem to stay tight. I am constantly cranking them down. The clamp on the bottom of the Tekotas means I never really have to worry about a reel coming loose when I'm fighting a fish. The AM reels do not have that feature.

So it isn't just a cool factor that you get when you buy these reels. You get a crane winch of a reel that will out perform and out last any other reel you can buy. I know a lot of guys that feel the same way about the Penn Squall 20s and they are nice but the Tekotas are unmatched in my opinion...

Those reel seats that won't stay tight, tighten them down good and put a few wraps of good electric tape over them.

I wrap a towel around mine and tighten them with channel locks. My reel seats never get loose