Dennis Zambrotta's take on the new
VS 275:
The Van Staal 275
I have been fishing with Van Staal reels since their inception. My surf fishing is considered heavy duty and my reels of choice are the VS250 and VS300.
I recently had the opportunity to try out Van Staal’s newest addition to their lineup of premium spinning reels. The VS275 is equipped with manual pickup, weighs in at 24 oz and has a line capacity of 425 yards of 25 pound mono or 350 yards of 80 pound braid. It is a “high speed” reel as its 4.75:1 gear ratio indicates. One revolution of the handle will recover a whopping 40 inches of line. Compare that to the VS reels on either side of the 275, the VS300 retrieves 27.5 inches per revolution and the VS250 36.5 inches.
I matched the VS275 on my custom Lamiglas 1201L. I attached the reel to the blank with electricians tape. The balance was very comfortable and I didn’t feel the reel was too heavy for the rod. I loaded the reel with 20 pound Big Game mono.
I used this combination for three weeks and fished many of my favorite surf locations in Rhode Island. I fished daytime and night, with plugs,
tins, bucktails, live eels, and rigged eels.
What I found:
The VS275 was smooth and comfortable to use while fishing with pencil poppers. When retrieved very little rod action and had the pencil bouncing back and forth with minimal effort. But I had a hard time trying to compensate for the ultra fast retrieve of this reel, especially when fishing tins that at times were skimming across the water’s surface on a barely moderate retrieve.
This high speed aspect of the 275 was magnified at night when slow retrieves are the rule. I often found myself retrieving my plugs and live eels much too fast and had to make a conscientious effort to “slow it down”. When fishing breechway currents I often found that my slow retrieve to “help” a bucktail along as it drifted was too fast taking the jig out of the strike zone. All in all slowing my retrieve to the required night time pace was very uncomfortable with the VS275.
Not surprisingly I found the high speed retrieve also had a noticeable effect when fighting a hooked fish. I often found myself putting too much pressure on a hooked fish while trying to keep a tight line. The fact that a half turn of the handle will recover almost two feet of line had me loosening the drag so I wouldn’t “horse” a fish that wasn’t “horse-able”.
The drag performed flawlessly and wasn’t affected when getting wet. The long handle with its oblong shaped knob was very comfortable and didn’t slip from my fingers like the small round knobs on other VS reel models.
Bottom Line: In my opinion the VS275 might have a place in a surf-casters arsenal for special high speed use when fast retrieves are called for. That use is very limited when surfcasting for striped bass. “Dyed in the wool” surf fishermen would have a hard time getting acclimated to the high speed nature of this reel. A novice surfcaster would find this reel very comfortable to use but may also be completely oblivious as to why he may not be catching bass “after dark” when others around him are – his retrieve being too fast.
If you’re going to purchase a Van Staal for chasing striped bass the VS300 and VS250 remain the two workhorse reels of choice.
Dennis Zambrotta