West Marine EXCELLENT BOGO Offer on Daiwa Procyon Reels

Once in a while West Marine will come thru with a decent deal. This one is more than decent. The Daiwa Procyon AL is being offered at a very buyer-friendly price of $199 for two. This is a $179 reel all day long. If I had to speculate, I would guess that Daiwa is ending the production of this reel, and going all-in with their new Procyon MQ - which is the "monocoque" body version that requires a special tool to open it. The AL is part of the older LT series, which has a regular old side plate, held to the body with screws, making it easy to open for servicing without a specific type of MQ wrench.

Also, the new MQ appears to be made of Zaion V, a type of fiber-infused carbonized plastic, while the AL is solid aluminum. That seems to be a plus to me. I would be interested in exactly how the newer Zaion V holds up compared to the original Zaion, which is now reserved for Daiwa's higher-end reels. My Ballistic LT is made of the original Zaion and I would say that it's a big plus in weight savings, making it nice to use all day, without my hand tiring. The Zaion V - is a lesser material, according to the on-line postings I've read. Anyway, this is an aside, as the reels on the BOGO are, as I said, aluminum.

You can think of the Procyon AL as the all-metal version of my Ballistic LT, which is no bad thing at all. Especially since the Procyon does NOT use the Ballistic's dopey "Mag Seal" technology, which requires an expensive and hard to obtain special magnetic fluid to seal the anti-reverse mechanism. Nope, the Procyon is just great, ""normal" reel. You can also consider it to be Daiwa's version of Shimano's Stradic FM.

The sizes available as of this morning are the 2500, 3000 and 4000, in a couple of configurations. If using these for any type of bottom fishing, I recommend going for whatever model has the lower gear ratio. As always, snooze/lose.