Penn GLD50II or Penn 30VSW for yellowfin, mahi,wahoo, etc?

[Lured Away]

Fishing in the mid atlantic area, what would the preference be on reels? All 30VSW or all GLD 50II?

If decided to do a mix of 30 & 50s, would go with 30 or 50s in the VSW? Budget is the constraint on not all VSWs.

[Sea Draggin]

30vsw with Jerry Brown spectra backing would be my choice of the two.

[babalaza]

The price difference between the 30vsw and the 50vsw is close to nothing no?

How many you wanting to buy? Perhaps you can work something out?

[Sterling]

I run the GLD 50II's and really like them. Just added a GLD 30II but haven't fished it yet. I also have a 70 VS, and shimano 25's & 50wlrs. So far the 50 II's are my favorite all purpose off-shore reel for standup. They are graphite and I must admit the gold reels have a nice look to them.

[norter79]

I'll likely have several 3 year old penn 50VSWs for sale.

They were torn down and rebuilt by penn each winter and drag washers were replaced.

Looking to get $425 per.

[gradyfish265]

I would fish 30W with hollowcore as mentioned above, they are much lighter and will not fatigue you as quickly but using the hollowcore will give you the capacity of a 50W reel. I also recommend using a metal/aluminum reel over graphite if you ever plan to use a drop harness or full harness on a fighting belt. Not sure if you might have a guy witha back problem or get into a big bluefin or marlin and might use one on stand up or even when in a chair, but graphite reels do not hold up well to drop straps, penn GLD's are worse then Shimano TLD's with breaking and I've seen 4 break in the last two years. We sold all of ours and went all metal bodies. Also, a 50GLD does not hold what a true 50 class reel will so it does not have a huge advantage over a 30W international if I am correct. For the bang for your buck I'd go with vsw's and fill them with 80lb hollowcore and 80lb mono top shots. The vsw is a reel you will keep a long time, the gld will be good for now but you will upgrade down the road spending more money, most I know who bought them did after a season or two. Buy the one you will keep a long time.


With hollowcore you will have a knotless splice which will slide through a guide or roller with ease. As a persoannl pref, I use all 80lb line, nothing less, I've broken off 90lb yellowfin on 50 and 60lb line, plus if you hook a big fish your limited in the drag you can use, you should never apply more then 1/3 the line rating on a fish unless you are in the battle of your life and have no other option, 50lb line means 16lbs of drag, what I typically set to for trolling, but that means any bump higher ona big fish risks popping the line if a fish runs hard on you. 60 means 20lb of drag which is good, but I've put as much as 28lbs of drag on 150lb bluefin to stop them so 80lb line is really best. My 30W have 550yards of 80 on them, I run 400yards of hollowcore and then fill them with 80lb mono. Hollowcore is more expensive in the beginning, but lasts longer. Mono needs replacemene tpreferably every season or every few trips if you fish a lot, and needs to be checked for frays and cut out. With hollowcore you only replace the top shot, not all of your line which will add up over the years. If hollowcore gets nicked, cut out the nick and then splice the two ends of hollowcore back togeather, not wasting very much except for the nicked cut out section. I had never spliced hollowcore myself and after having a tackle shop show me two times, I now do it all myself and my splices held up to some 150-200lb fish this season so anyone can do it themselves.

[burricane]

We had a lot of guys down here go to the new(ish) Shimano TLD II 50WLRSA with pretty good results. Saw a few 200# class bluefins caught on them last year. Won't last you quite as long as an aluminum framed reel but the price point is considerably different. You'll do much better with that reel than the comparable Penn graphite framed one.

As far as spooling options, I've used hollowcore and solid powerpro without seeing much of a difference. The fingercuffs splice you do with the hollowcore looks a lot cooler, but after testing it against a monster knot splice or a bimmini/bimmini (loop to loop) connection the difference in strength is negligible. The other kinds of splices allow you to use a greater range of lines as well. I typically back all of my big reels with 150# powerpro, then can adjust my top shot accordingly. On the new TLD 50s you can get about 500 yards 150#powerpro plus a 75-150 yard topshot depending on the size of the mono IF you pack it on the spool wet. Which you probably should be doing anyway.

Just my two cents.

[Lured Away]

Thanks for all the good info. What is the maximum drag a 30vsw is capable of?

[gradyfish265]

Yes the knots between hollowcore and mono vs braid and mono are negligible in strength, but think about a knot going over an eyelid and getting nicked on each pass, vs a wrapped smooth connection of hollowcore which will not damage the connection if taken care of and redone every few trips, it will last longer then a regular knot, and any knot with mono over 80lbs can cause a fairly decent bump, hollowcore only gets a hair bigger then the mono size itself. If your going to spend the money, both are similar in price, power pro being slightly cheaper, but once its nicked you have to cut it off or splice it with a knot which I'd rather eliminate, a splice between hollowcore ends is smoohter making it longer lasting IMHO. I will not argue that going with braid backing regardless of which type is the way to go, it increased your reel capacity allowing you to fish a class up with a smaller setup whcih will not kill the angler weight wise but can handle big fish. As far as fishing capabilities, both are strong and will get the job done. I've fished both and will never go back to straight mono again. Just as a side note, if you fish braid, all rods should be the same, not some braid some mono, if they cross you want them the same so they do not cut each other easily, mono to braid is bad, mono to mono can be dealt with and so can braid to braid as long as it doesnt knot. We put 100yards of mono as our top shots as a min, more on bigger 50class reels. My reason for this is because I troll a bit, we like to have mono out so if a school hits and lines cross likely its mono to mono if we loss a fish we can rerig easier that way and save time as well as money. Most of the fish you see will barely take out the braid, but bluefin and big eyes will and an occasional bigger yellowfin, as well as a marlin so having it is great, basically your still fishing mono but have the added security of the braid as backing and more line capacity.

[John from Madison CT]

I don't know the max drag of a Penn 30VSW, but I have mine set at 20lbs at Strike and about 28 lbs at full, without any problems.

These are very nice reels. Mine is loaded up with 130lb Jerry Brown Hollow core and a 100yard topshot with lots of capacity. (easily 500yards, probably more)