We take great pride in the fact that our tackle reviews are completely unbiased. We buy the tackle that we feel will best suit our fishing and if we think it is good we tell you about it. ESF contributor Graham Nicol has dipped his hand in his pocket and bought a Danielsson reel and shares his views on it.
In a previous edition of ESF I wrote about the Nautilus NV reel and compared it with the quality engineering that top-end German cars are famed for. I now want to talk briefly about another reel that is as reliable and trustworthy as a Volvo and that is the Danielsson L5W reel. Swedish in pedigree, the quality of workmanship is second to none with no skimping in materials or finish. In fact as with my car analogy the end product does not suffer from any in your face bling or brashness but is pleasant to the eye and yet has impressive lines and colouring to impress upon one that this is a quality product that will never go out of fashion and will outlast many other competitors.
So what is so special about this reel?
Well there are no particular features that stand it out from the rest but if one were to score each one it would fall in the high category each time resulting in a reel that truly has few weaknesses. If I were to highlight one it would perhaps be the conversion from left to right or vice versa as it requires an allen key (supplied) and thus is not to be carried out on the riverbank. But quite frankly who does this? Ideally you get the shop to carry this out and thus it will never require subsequent amendment. Offsetting this there is one particularly novel feature and this is what they call a "variable drag” system which effectively can be set up to offer 5 different braking configurations. The factory setting is by default set at 3 but if one wants a stronger set up this can be altered to settings 4 or 5. Effectively what happens is a series of “O” rings are altered to a different sequence which then affects the force on the drag. Hence if one were to perhaps book a week's permit and tarpon fishing these settings would be adjusted to the higher end of the scale to try and assist slowing down these saltwater rockets and readjusted thereafter if the quarry is somewhat more sedate in nature.
These reels are constructed with anodised aluminium and stainless steel and are fully salt water proof. Nevertheless no matter what the claim I always separate the spool from the cage and run both under fresh water and that is for any manufacturer. The clicker which operates in both directions can be turned off but again I find it reasonably quiet and I do enjoy listening to it when a fish is tearing line off the reel. Spool release is simple involving unscrewing (not completely) the large rear cover cap and lifting the spool retention spider outwards and slightly rotating it in either direction. Then the spool simply lifts out.
The reel pictured is the 6-9 indicating the line sizes it can accommodate and for a WF8 it can also take 230m of 20lb backing which should be enough for most normal situations. Weighing 192g this is not a heavy reel.
Pricing wise these reels lie towards the bottom end of expensive reels with this model retailing around £250. Currently they are discounted by 30% (http://www.danielsson-flyreels.se/e-handel/) and thus grab yourself a bargain! Excellent value in my opinion and just like the Nautilus series a reel that will likely outlive your fishing career with minimal fuss.