Alpha Spinning Reel

I think these reels are a great deal. I first purchased a couple as rod/reel combos at Walmart at the beach....I wanted something cheap for surf fishing on vacation and this fit the bill. Came with a heavy 9' rod and worked to catch fish. I figured I'd get a week or two of use out of it before they locked up, but I wound up using the reels for over 5 years before one gave up and the other for probably 3 or 4 additional years before the handle broke off from salt corrosion. The way I use reels at the beach that is saying alot. I always wash things off after use, but I don't hesitate to submerge a reel in salt water...things get knocked over in the sand etc and for such a cheap reel to stand up to the equivalent of several months of abuse like that is pretty good. They get the job done in basic style....I've caught tons of fish along with some 4-5' blacktips on these rigs. Side note - the 9' bigwater rods are still going strong...put some Penn reels on them and kept fishing.

I own several. Will probably buy more. They catch fish. They could have a few more features. Just basic reels. Great for what you pa y for them.

Very good reel and was well worth the money

Best $15 open face reel I’ve ever bought. Have caught 3 over 10 pounds with this reel!

Worked good

after second use, it would not reel.

Smooth easy to grip

I bought this on a one week vacation to give surf fishing a try. Came as a $44 combo at fishermens den in Belmar. Nice young man there was really helpful. He says he talks too much but every word was an education for me. He suggested I buy the Penn combo and he's certainly right. Thst said, this is the outfit they rent so it must at least work well enough to hold up to beginners abuse. I've been fishing this rig for three days and having a fine time. The reel works fine. Will it last like my 2062?, I bet it won't. I do rinse it after ever trip to the surf and it's running smooth and casts great. I've kept it out of the sand though it's been under water plenty. If I end up surf fishing more I'm sure I'll upgrade but this is easily serving the purpose. I'll definitely give it a thorough cleaning when I get home and see how long it lasts. I'm glad I brought it. Oh yeah, between my son and me we caught about 36 inches worth of fish, you guess how many. So on my last morning at the shore I took my Alpha rig to the beach for a few last casts. When I started to reel in it was very hard to crank. It didn't grind like it had sand in it, but it was really hard to turn the handle. Did a couple of casts and called it a morning. Once I got home and unpacked, I took the reel to the work bench and took it apart. There was corrosion inside that was slowing it down. The real casing had a lot of salt water and sand in it, even after being thoroughly rinsed after fishing. It looks like the roller bearing is corroded into submission. Just to clarify here, I'm not surprised or expecting a $14 reel to perform like a $100+ reel. This thing almost got me through the week and I had a great time learning a few things about surf fishing. Two things that I learned are, I'm going back to do it again and I'm going to invest in proper gear. If I can get this thing back together and working, I'm might use it as a back up. But I might just dump it and not worry about it. I paid about $26 for my Shakespeare 2062 back about 1969 and it's still cranking. I'm wondering if Shakespeare even makes something of that quality now. I do see excellent reviews on their Ugly Sticks, so they still must make a good rod. Thanks, dwc