Im looking for a reel for a TFO TiCRx 8wt. Most use will be for bass but I want to be able to catch reds, trout, bones and other hard fighting saltwater fish. I dont mind spending extra on a reel that will hold up or buying used. So what do you guys think would be a few good reels to start tracking down?

Sage 4580CF. (this is a sweet a** reel and the price is good as well)

Sage 2580.

If you have the money to spend the 3400D is a bulletproof reel.

thanks for the help, Im going to check them out, see if there are any deals to be had on ebay

Put a TFO 375 Large Arbor on it.

Sage makes rods. Reels, not so much.

I'll check it out

The TFO 375 is a nice reel.

http://www.templeforkflyrods.com/products/reels.html

Rex

TIBOR RIPTIDE-

I like the albright GPX

Okuma Integrity on E-bay all the time. My 6-7(or7-8) handles hard running hybrid stripers from the bank with a yawn.

Lamson Guru, konic, or orvis battenkill

Reds and trout won't test your drag too much but those bonefish will. If you are mostly fishing the Texas coast, and only going to Florida, Mexico occasionally, you don't need anything too beefy. (expensive). You might check out the G Loomis Venture Reels. Reasonably priced and the ones I've handled were well built.

Unless you're crazy like me (it's a short trip...) and tackle jacks from the beach and kings from the jetty, you can get by easily with an Integrity, or the Loomis reels that spiny mentioned. Inshore fishing is more about corrosion resistance than backing capacity and drag - fishing the surf and blue water for big fish requires all three of those in spades.

I do issue a warning about Lamson Konics - they corrode. It has been mentioned in the past on similar threads but recently I had a close associate take one apart that had seen sea time and he said it was not a pretty sight.

Buy as good a reel as you can afford, take care of it and it will take care of you.

-1 on the Loomis [Ad]Venture unless you hate your reel to last more than one trip.

Dave, What issues did you find with the Ventures? I've never owned one but had heard nothing but good about them, (for the price point) since they've been on the market. That's from people whose opinions I respected. If they are cr*p, I sure don't wan't to be reccomending them.

I hate bashing equipment because generally, it's all good... not so with that [Ad]Venture reel... they changed the name but they didn't change the reel.

Get the drag wet and it starts to chatter. Stick and slide, stick and slide, in other words.

I had one in the 5-7 or whatever mid-size and was sight fishin, wind blowing hard from the south while the tide was ripping out in the shrimp channel at AP, so there ya go, 4 foot waves and on the way out the kayak filled with water. So the [Ad]Venture gets a good submersion, for about 10 minutes.

Back at the cabin and the reel comes apart, rinse, dry open overnight, go back to fishin. Next day a tail pops up, big tail, throw the fly out there, hook the fish, fish starts burning off, all the sudden the spool handle freezes up while I'm reeling in and the fish pops.

Sucks, but what can you do? Back at the cabin that night I spray some Corrosion-X in there and with pliers loosen it back up. Only reel I got for that rod, see. But it's fine, and for grins spray down the rest of the reel, just in case.

Next day, paddling B&R. Sweat pouring down our faces. Not a breeze and it's August. No activity on the flats but we're a long ways from the truck. Decide to slow paddle it in, take a little tour, see what we see. All the sudden a school of large redfish starts to tail in about 2 feet of water. Somebody turned on a light switch. Throw a cast in there with a little pink seaducer, see, strip, strip-strike, bang, big dam redfish is burning line off. Then a sound like an airplane landing on a beach with its wheels stuck in the up position and the line goes slack.

WTF?!?!?!?

Go to reel up, can't. The reel is locked up SOLID. Drag is FROZEN IN TIME.

2 big redfish 2 days in a row, nice, oversize fish, one crappy reel.

Silver colored reels do not a saltwater rig make. The reel is [censored] on saltwater... and you can find stories like that all over the coast if you ask. There is nothing wrong with an [Ad]Venture reel... if you only fish in freshwater... and never get the drag wet (my 4wt reel is the smaller one and it chatters too).

In laymans terms (because I don't know the real ones) saltwater corrosion happens when certain alloys get down and nasty with other certain alloys in some sort of fancy electromagication thing. And then things get stuck. More important that price tag or color in a saltwater reel is that it doesn't have "tab A" that "marries to slot B".

The Loomis reel is so popular on message boards because a certain person hawked them hard several years ago in some sort of equipment-shill deal. They are not fit for saltwater.

An inexpensive reel that will handle SURF (& salt) is the Okuma Integrity (~$80). A mid priced reel that will handle SURF is the TFO Large Arbor (~$300). There are several reels in the $500+ range, including some offerings from TFO that will do the trick nicely, now you're getting into the Haydens (TFO) and the various offerings from Nautilus, Abel, and Tibor.

You can't just go put any reel in saltwater. Unless you like buring through $100 bills.