Fishing and Hunting

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Torsa High Speed Lever Drag Reel - New! With Quick Change Drag Cam System How Shimano takes an idea and develops a revolutionary new reelSix years ago, Shimano American Corporation's Executive Vice President, Dave Pfeiffer ,first saw the need for a small, high speed, high power lever drag reel, with excellent castability.He wanted to catch big fish with a small reel that had the power and drag of a big heavy large reel. Star drag reels were not the answer since you can't adjust the drag with heavy line like you can on a lever drag reel. Small lever drag reels were slow bulky reels you could not cast. So Pfeiffer had Shimano go out on the water to develop a better lever drag reel. Shimano put one of their top engineers on the job, Kenichi Kawasaki, a fishing fanatic. With the help of Shimano's product manager Jeremy Sweet, they designed a reel to meet the needs of fisherman. At last in February of 2004, the Shimano R &D team put the Torsa to the test on sailfish off the coast of Guatemala with Captain Ron Hamlin, renowned for his record number of tagged and released sailfish. Fishing for sails on light tackle, the team could test the speed of the reel, how fast it could pick up line and the adjustability of the drag. The fishing technique is to tease the fish up and drop dead bait to it on a circle hook. The sail takes the bait, turns the opposite way while you set the hook gradually with the drag locking the circle hook in the corner of the sail's mouth. When the fish takes off, the boat backs down and you must wind in the line as quickly as possible. Torsa delivered by hooking almost 100 sails in the 75 to 100 lb. Range. They put the lever up to full drag and fought the sails without a harness. No fish took longer than 10minutes. They learned how to increase the power even more by lengthening the reel's handle shank. In April, Torsa was jigging on wrecks in KeyWest with Pfeiffer and ESPN'S Jose Wejebe. Reels were loaded with 100 lb. PowerPro & 100 lb wind-on leaders. Wreck fishing requires full dragpower and fast retrieves. This would test Torsa's power. Pfeiffer caught 50 and 80 lb amberjack at full drag without a harness. They checked the drag and found an amazing 34 pounds. Not only could Torsa take up the slack with a high retrieve rate to bring sailfish in quickly, it could deliver the brute force to crank bottom fish out of wrecks. No other reel has this versatility. Rapid Fire was developed with the input of many anglers out on the water. As people start to use Torsa, they will come to Shimano with new ideas for more cams and techniques.Imagine a saltwater reel with more speed, more power, more versatility and better castability. Dream no longer. Introducing the Shimano Torsa.Speed and Power1. Extremely smooth cranking helically cut drive gear is the largest in Shimano reel history, and provides unbelievable power along with a high speed retrieve.2. Because of the oversized sideplate and spool, Torsa is able to accommodate an extremely la