China direct reels, anyone has one...?

[Bryon Anderson 0]

I own 3 China-direct reels and they all have worked perfectly for me. Full disclosure -- I fish mostly for stream trout and smallmouth bass in Michigan, where neither the size of the fish or the speed of the current in the rivers makes it necessary to have any kind of sophisticated drag system. That being the case, I've developed a fondness for the Chinese made reels because a) they work just fine for me and they're nice and cheap, and you can get them in some unusual colors that other manufacturers either don't produce at all, or, if they do, they think it makes a click-pawl reel worth $400-1000. I have one for my 3 wt. that has a cool camo paint job, and another for my 6 wt. that I bought simply because I could get it in red. In fact, I just ordered a spare spool for that one today (at the comfy price of $11.50 shipped ). I don't own any really expensive reels--I think my most expensive one is an old Ross Cimmaron that I gave around $150 for--so I can't compare the China-direct reels to anything fancy made in the U.S., but I will say that the Chinese reels work as well as the Ross or any of my other American reels.