# Van Staal vs big Tarpon



## dbrady784 (Feb 17, 2014)

Would go with the 200, but depends what rod you are pairing it with too. With that being said unless you plan on dunking your reel a ton I would look at other options. Sold my staals because it feels like your grinding coffee on the retrieve, and the drag isn’t smooth like a regular Penn,Shimano, Diawa. Had a few problems with the VSX as well. Known problems and they don’t fix them, instead you spend 800$ and have to get after market parts just to repair what their flawed design.


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## Zika (Aug 6, 2015)

Agree with @dbrady784. Had one but it was heavy and not the smoothest action. Sold it and bought a Shimano Sustain 5000 instead. It'll hold plenty of braid and has the drag to stop the big girls.


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## Egrets Landing (Feb 11, 2016)

dbrady784 said:


> Would go with the 200, but depends what rod you are pairing it with too. With that being said unless you plan on dunking your reel a ton I would look at other options. Sold my staals because it feels like your grinding coffee on the retrieve, and the drag isn’t smooth like a regular Penn,Shimano, Diawa. Had a few problems with the VSX as well. Known problems and they don’t fix them, instead you spend 800$ and have to get after market parts just to repair what their flawed design.


I have two. Both also do not feel smooth and the drags tighten on their own when a fish pulls. Awful. A waste of money. I sent one back to get fixed and it was fixed for only a month and now the drags will tighten again every time by itself. They are like brand new and useless. The make great pliars but the reels suck!


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Instead of looking at a particular brand reel.. I'd be checking capabilities and line capacities instead... Look for bigger spinners that hold about 300 yards of 30lb braid as a starting point. I've had great success with my anglers using old Penn 7500SS reels (or the even older 750SS) as well as the smaller 6500 series, the new Daiwa BG5000 (all of these are modestly priced reels) - the higher end models don't actually perform better with a giant tarpon hooked up and pulling really hard...


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