The Caddis Fly: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

If you enjoyed the Bauer Fly Reel factory tour, you’ll love this clip from Field & Stream’s Fly Fishing Blog on YouTube. They guys hook up a Bauer MX4 to a motorcycle and run out the drag. They compare the reel against Abel, Ross, and Nautilus and the Bauer scores high.

From the Field & Stream Flytalk blog:

We tied them up to the ass end of a street bike, burned a little rubber, then watched — and felt — how each reel reacted. We paid close attention to startup drag performance, that initial acceleration a fish makes at the critical moment of going from zero resistance to outward line acceleration. Was it scientific? No. But we did do our homework, learning that a max trout burst is about 9 mph; bonefish race at around 23 mph; and big game fish like mako sharks can reach speeds of 50-plus mph. Was it fair? We tested each reel only at the top speed of the fish it was designed to handle.