Shimano Brenious review Pt.2

[Martin Lo]

Firstly, apologies for the lack of photos and videos. iCloud decided that footage and images filmed not on an apple device would not be stored :evil:

During the course of testing I had the fortune to fish the Brenious against the LTZ AE-74 and Ian Shields fantastic ISA-02. I'll split facet of performance relative to these other reels. Each of these reels was tested with an identical rod ( the M1 Carbine ), line (Sugoi FC 8lb) and identical set of baits.

Cast: This is probably the most crucial factor of all BFS reels, in the past distance was the key unit of measure on whether a reel was good or otherwise. As shallow spool mods and factory tuned reels are becoming more available the field in terms of sheer casting distance has narrowed.
Overall the Brenious achieved distances close to that of the LTZ-AE74 and around 80-90% of ISA with the brenious performing closer to the benchmark with more aerodynamic baits. The biggest difference was in the ease of cast, the Brenious like the LTZ rewarded a smooth side arm casts with more abrupt actions requiring and increase of braking tabs. The ISA with its T3 Air spool was seemingly indifferent to whether I pitched, casted, underflicked or literally swung for the fences. If the rod loaded, the bait flew. A rod with a softer taper will definitely gain dividends with the the Shimano Brenious.
Baits I was able to comfortably cast included 1/16 oz jig with a GYCB crappy Ika and the 3" SW Shrimp with a 1/0 SOS twistlock. The lightest hardbody that was easy to cast was the Megabass Live-x smolt at 1/8 oz

Dialing in: This was quite easy, having installed each pair with both a clear lighter brake as well as the stock red brake, I used on default 2 clear brakes to achieve maximum distances with relative ease. I see no real situations where more than 4 brakes of any colour would need to be deployed.

Retrieve: Here the Brenious exceled an in many ways came up as first amongst many. This thing is fast and powerful! Although under light loads it did not equal the smoothness of the ISA, under high loads despite the high gearing of 7.7:1 this reel was generated torque with little effort. This maybe due to the large almost microgear like brass main gear and the sturdy 50E platform. If loaded on braid, I would not hesitate to fish this reel on full sized 3/8oz spinner baits if capacity allows.

Fighting fish: Here the brenious' sturdiness also comes into play, uniform in thickness and without holes, it is designed to handle braid and the stress of light inshore fishing. Given the size of the drag is a plus with opportunity to tune for more given that the pressure plate is quite a bit smaller than the drag washer itself.


All in all I highly rate the Shimano Brenious as it ticks many boxes in my everyday fishing. With the ability to cast light, wind fast and fight hard it can also double as a light PE reel (say 20lb Sufix 832) and used as a general purpose reel.

Martin.