77: Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept Free Test

Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free

Test Drive

Abu Garcia Japan must be housing some long haired, pot smoking, creative wizard to be able to come out with amazing looking low profile reels again and again. Pot smoking or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that they seem to be able to turn reels that already look good into more amazing looking works of art. Not only do they make them look a lot more amazing, they also have some form of magical engineering power to make them feel greater than great.

Delightful looking Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free low profile bait-casting reel.

The Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free low profile baitcasting reel is a reel made for light jigging out at sea. This means that the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free is built to manage some beating since saltwater fishes are known to fight hard. But the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free looks petit and sporty like a lotus Elise instead of a lunatic revving monster truck. Will it be able to handle hard fighting brutes?

The Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free low profile reel comes with 5 shielded bearings. Saltwater fishing reels tend to have lesser bearings and use washers instead to reduce wear and tear as well as maintenance.

To find out its capabilities we actually field tested the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free reel twice. The first test was done at our usual saltwater fishing pond in Jugra, Klang, Selangor. This place has got a few ponds. They have a pond filled with acrobatic barramundis, a pond filled with hard fighting mangrove jacks, a pond filled with even more hard fighting golden snappers, and they have a pond that houses tiger groupers.

Field Test 1 – Jugra Golden Snapper Pond

Reel Model Tested – Jugra

Brand: Abu Garcia

Reel Model: Salty Stage Concept-Free

Reel Size: Low Profile

Rod: Abu Garcia Revo X

Rod Model: RXC632M A

Rod Action: Medium

Main Line: Spiderwire Dura-4 Braid (Moss Green)

Line lb: 15lb

Leader Line: Berkley Vanish

Line lb: 17lb

Baits / Lures: Berkley Powerbait Power Grub

Size: 3 inch

Hooks / Jig-heads: Owner Ultra Heads (Jig heads)

Test Conditions: Sunny with consistent winds

At the ponds in Jugra we decided to go for the hard fighting golden snappers since our tackle (medium action rod and saltwater light jigging reel) are made to handle at least these range of fighters.

Casting the Abu Garcia Revo X rod and Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free.

Casting Ability

The Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free low profile baitcasting reel uses a 6 pin centrifugal brake system called the F-Mode Brake System to control the rotation of its spool. The F-Mode Brake System works really well making casting relatively easy even when casting into the wind. We managed to get our baits flying very good distances reaching right across the pond easily without issues of spool overruns (bird nesting).

In the heat of battle with a hard fighting Golden Snapper.

Battles were no issue at all. The reel handled them smoothly. The drag was smooth (set at about 60%) and performed without any stickiness and thus no jerky feeling was felt throughout the battles that it had gone through. Despite the hard fights by the hard fighter golden snappers here, the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free was simply taking a stroll at the park.

Hard fighting Golden Snappers bullied by the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept- Free.

Well, field testing the reel in Jugra was like taking a Lotus Elise and racing it on a long straight highway (or freeway depending from which country you are at). There were not many challenges and I personally felt that the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free was made to take more. A Lotus Elise should at least be racing in the British Isle Of Man. Then again it would be playing about in its elements. The test is really the driver.

The six pin centrifugal brakes gives anglers good control over the cast.

What if we took the Lotus Elise out of its elements and have it race in the Dakar Rally instead? That would be serious fun and downright dangerous wouldn’t it? So we decided to field test the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free again. This time we headed to our favourite pond called the Natural Exotic Sports Fishing pond in Behrang, Perak, Malaysia. It will most certainly be like racing the Lotus Elise in the Dakar Rally as the fishes here fight really hard; perhaps harder than the saltwater fishes that the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free is made to manage.

Tough brass gears made to handle high pressure and stress.

We changed out the lines for heavier lines; spooling in 30lb Spiderwire Dura-4 Braid in place of the 15lb Spiderwire Dura-4 Braid. We did this as the fishes that we targeted at the Natural Exotic Sports Fishing pond will certainly exert a lot more pressure than the golden snappers of Jugra.

Field Test 2 – Natural Exotic Sports Fishing

Reel Model Tested

Brand: Abu Garcia

Reel Model: Salty Stage Concept-Free

Reel Size: Low Profile

Rod: Abu Garcia Revo X

Rod Model: RXC632M A

Rod Action: Medium

Main Line: Spiderwire Dura-4 Braid (Moss Green)

Line lb: 30lb

Leader Line: Berkley Vanish

Line lb: 30lb

Baits / Lures: Fish Meat / Chicken Innards

Size: N/A

Hooks / Jig-heads: Owner

Size: 7

Test Conditions: Sunny with slight wind

Here at the Natural Exotic Sports Fishing Pond, fishes such as the extremely hard fighting Mekong catfish, Chao Phraya catfish, Amazon Red Tail catfish, Siamese Red Tail catfish, Arapaima, etc. lay in wait for a fight. Rods and reels have been broken here battling these brutes. Even anglers have got themselves broken here to surrendering to the pressure put on by the hard fighting gladiators.

The Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept- Free being tortured.

Using chicken innards and fish meat as bait we easily land them into our intended fishing zone. The target fishes this time to test both the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free low profile baitcasting reel and the Abu Garcia Revo X baitcasting rod are the hard fighting Amazon Red Tail catfishes. These hard fighters will certainly push them to their limits and maybe even break them.

It did not take long to register a bite. The fish ran hard and the battle was on. The drag of the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free was set really high; probably at about 80% drag. The fish easily stripped line off the reel and our tester decided to push the drag up higher, maxing it out. Clearly the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free met its match and all it could do was to exert the maximum pressure that it could exert.

A big hard fighting Amazon Red Tail catfish subdued.

The drag performed relatively smoothly even when its maxed out. It did not take long to tire out the hard running brute and bring it up for some photos. We had about five very hard battles before the first sign of jerkiness was felt. Then again it could be due to the line digging into the lines in the spool as no other jerkiness or stickiness was felt after that.

To cut a long story short, we managed to land a good amount of hard fighting Amazon Red Tail catfishes losing only one due to a bad hook set where the fish managed to throw the hook and escaped the mobile phone cameras.

Top view of the brute that was subdued by the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free.

What A Reel

We took the Lotus Elise and raced it in the Dakar Rally. It did well and did not break. Haha, we certainly tortured the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free low profile baitcasting reel and it was way out of its elements and playing at a level above its limits. Despite that, it held on. It screamed, It yelled, but it held on. It fought despite the very heavy pressures and it won. Hats off to the Abu Garcia Salty Stage Concept-Free.