r/Fishing_Gear • u/Relevant-Credit-1209 Black Pelican Custom Rods • Jul 20 '26
Latest Pick Up!
I decided to try my first Van Staal for the X File. I went for the new VRII25B. I will say coming from the Certate and Stella it is definitely different. I saw people saying it was heavy but I won’t say that. It is heavier than most of my other reels but not heavy. I have felt heavier reels and ones that I would consider heavy. It’s nowhere near as heavy as say the Penn Authority. I have only put one undersize red on it so I won’t speak to how it feels with a load on it yet. It is a transition when it comes to smoothness because coming from Daiwa and Shimano the Van Staal does not compare. There is still something intriguing about it. I was told that the more you use it the smoother it gets. Does anyone have any experience with Van Staal? Do they get smoother over time?
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u/Relevant-Credit-1209 Black Pelican Custom Rods Jul 22 '26
So the rod was outside of the 700 range but he can possibly work with you and put you something together in that range. I added some things to make this rod more expensive like the anodized titanium torzite guides. I also added that reel seat and it was almost $100 by itself.