As I said in a blog post back in October last year, I am nothing to do with the development of this new Savage Gear SGS8 4000 spinning reel, but because of my working with the company I was able to get hold of a couple for the princely sum of nothing. Most of you here I hope are going to trust what I say about any item of fishing tackle, so whilst I am not going to shy away from me having an increased interest these days in anything Savage Gear which I think might have an application for my fishing, I’d have still been very interested in any new spinning reel on the market from any tackle company which says it’s for saltwater fishing AND is on sale for what seems to be a pretty aggressive price - £140 here in the UK.
The easy bit is that I really like fishing with this thing. Note though that I like it so far but I don’t love it yet like say I love the Penn Slammer reels or the Shimano Vanfords which have crept up on me as being seriously bloody lovely. I need far longer with the reel to see if I end up loving the thing, but for £140 this SGS8 4000 spinning reels feels suitably suited to how I go about much of my lure fishing (caveat further down the post). It’s lighter at 333g loaded with line than an equivalent sized Slammer IV 3500 at 411g loaded with line, but the Slammer has an IPX6 rating, it’s kinda bombproof, and the Slammer family has been around for far longer. There’s no point in me quoting equivalent Shimano reel weights because you know that they are somewhat lighter and I must assume that Savage Gear wasn’t trying to build an uber-light reel here.
The line-lay out of the box with both the reels I have here has been pretty much perfect, but over time I have dropped the line-level a bit on them both to keep things “safe”. I’m not complaining because I am perfectly used to having slightly lower line-levels on any Penn spinning reels I have fished with - and especially their smaller 2500 size reels - but yet again it reminds me just how good the line management so obviously is on modern Shimano and Daiwa reels. Fill them up and forget about it as so many of you know, but I would suggest that if you get one of these Savage Gear SGS8 4000 reels that you don’t go getting too greedy. I only had a hint of a couple of line issues but I’m not interested in a sniff of a wind knot so I play things safe and the reels cast flawlessly.
One thing I do like is the 5.5:1 retrieve speed, because unless I am mistaken a slightly lower retrieve speed can sometimes promote an increased feeling of smoothness when you are winding lures in - and these things are smooth. Not Shimano Vanford or Stradic smooth I grant you, but when you’re out actually fishing and not turning reel handles from the safety of the kitchen table, those last few notches of smoothness count for very little in my book.
Mark and I were out surf fishing just before Xmas, as per the photos in this blog post, and I gave him a sample lure rod for the session which had one of the two SGS8 4000 reels on which I have here. I asked that he do nothing more than fish normally and give me a bit of feedback, so whilst Savage Gear are making no IPX waterproof rating claims with this reel, there is some gumph on the website here about various saltwater related resistance. Because I got these reels for nothing I urged Mark to fish in the heavy surf conditions like he normally would and not worry about anything. I would normally use a Penn Slammer and what I know to be a delight in shrugging off any surf-based saltwater grief for this kind of fishing, but I wanted to see if anything untoward might happen to the reels…………..
A while into the session and Mark called me over to say that his SGS8 4000 spinning reel had taken a proper and unintentional dunking as he was dealing with a fish. I told him not to worry about it for a second and when I got home after fishing I did what I would usually do to any spinning reel which got properly drowned, Slammer included - tighten the drag down, fill a sink with warm water, submerge the reel and turn the handle for a while (underwater), take the reel out of the sink, slacken off the drag, allow it to drip-dry.
But this one SGS8 4000 which got the drowning in the surf isn’t the same reel now. It’s still fishable with but it’s not nearly as smooth as it was before that session, indeed it’s a bit “grindy” when you reel a lure in now. To be fair I have seen far more expensive Shimano and Daiwa reels killed after one proper drowning in the surf and it’s why the Penn Slammers have become such an indispensable part of some of my lure fishing. Savage Gear makes no claims about any kind of IPX water resistant rating on these SGS8 reels and they are not designed to be drowned, but it proves to me yet again that surf fishing especially calls for a bit of more specialist gear unless you are very lucky or careful. I am neither!
The other reel is doing just fine, indeed it seems to be a bit like a Penn in that the more I fish with it, the smoother it gets as I guess the gearing wears in a bit. I need a lot more time with this thing to see where it ends up, but as it stands right now I think it’s a lot of reel for the money - and if the reel still feels as good as this much further down the road then I’m going to be seriously impressed. I don’t know where these reels are made but for the life of me the handle on this SGS8 4000 seems to be exactly the same as you would find on a 3500 size Slammer - are Savage Gear buying the handles in? I know that a lot of anglers really like those round gold aluminium handles, but whilst I’m fine with them myself, I do prefer the EVA handle which was supplied with the Slammer III 3500 reels (I don’t know whether this second handle still comes with the Slammer IV 3500 because I haven’t seen one in a box yet). So I had a go at seeing if the EVA handle knob from my hammered Slammer III 3500 would fit on this SGS8 4000 spinning reel, and it does. I’d love to see a smaller 3000 size of this new SGS8 4000 spinning reel, but on that I shall say no more. You all have a good weekend………….
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