Okuma Makaira

Okuma Makaira 50W II - Excellent reel – Just bought a Makaira MK-50WII reel. I haven't fished with this reel yet so this will be only a quick review based on my first impressions. This the second Makaira one I have bought in the past month. Out of the box, Wow, my first impressions are that they are an extremely well made solid reel, beautifully finished and a delight to hold and crank. Okuma is one of the larger CNC manufacturers of the world so they know how to machine a product, they also make the machines that a lot of other reel manufacturers use to produce their own reels, a while ago they teamed up with Tiburon who are excellent designers. End result are these reels.

The Makaira's are solid, overbuilt reels designed to handle almost anything that comes their way with an incredible amount of drag, the reels are slightly on the heavier side due to the solid frame, this helps with reducing the frame twisting and heat dissipation under heavy drag load conditions. The 50W II has about 85lb drag, is a 2 speed reel with a loud ratchet clicker, and when you wind the handle you don't hear that annoying click that other reels make due to the anti reverse dogs, these are silent.

I looked at a Shimano Tiagra before deciding on the Makaira and whilst the Tiagras are a good reel, in my opinion they are nowhere near as nice to handle as the Makairas. These reels also have helical cut gears which you certainly notice the difference as you wind the spool. I have fished with Daiwa Sealine Tournament game reels and some earlier Okuma Titus reels as well as TLD's and Tyrnos, Tica, Penn Fathoms and so have no allegiance with any brand.

The 50W II, is a largish size reel, which I will use for land base shark fishing it holds a decent amount of line (about 1000m of 130lb braid), I don't think I will ever get a larger reel than the 50W as it should handle any fish that I will hook and if it can't then I don't want to know about that fish, as it will be way too massive a fish for my liking, and will loose its appeal in a very short time. Imagine fighting a fish that can handle 85lb drag on top of using the rod for leverage against you for a few hours, I certainly wouldn't last the distance. Definitely not fun!!

Most people will never catch anything that large that this reel couldn't handle, so, If you are looking for a largish game reel then go to a few tackle shops and put your hands on some other brands before you lay down some cash, just be sure to check these out before deciding, in my opinion you won't be disappointed. I couldn't combine the two reviews so had to make similar individual reviews of these reels.

Highly recommend!!!!

Cheers.

Happy Ending – I live on the Sunshine Coast Queensland Australia and ocean kayak fish on average once a week as well as fish from a mates boat offshore regularly. After thorough research on all makes of lever drag reels I chose the Makaira. I purchased online from an Australian retailer (life time warranty outweighed cheaper prices from overseas with 5 year warranty) and waited with anticipation for the reel to arrive.

It looked and felt fantastic when removed from the box and I was straight into spooling it with the 65lb braid, once spooled I checked out the drag and was surprised that I couldn't achieve more than 2lbs of drag at strikeand 6at full with total free spool, online research U.S Okuma website states 27lbs at strike and 34lbs at full with total free spool. Australian Okuma website does not give any information on drag capacities for the makaira range, same for other models.

I rang the retailer and told him my problem, they said to send it back and they would replace it, sending it express post I was slightly disappointed so far and waited for the replacement to arrive.

After three days and no reel I rang the retailer and they told me it had been sent off to the Australian distributor to be looked at, I rang the distributor and was told it had been fixed and sent back to the retailer , I rang the retailer and was told it had been sent. More days went past and no reel arrived After checking again with the retailer, we worked out it had been sent to someone else!!!

At this stage I think anyone would be a more than a little upset. A whole month since original purchase.

The retailer spooled the new reel and then rang and told me that it had the same problem with it's drag.

I rang the distributor and was told the Australian Makaira's were supplied with the TDC drag cam only,this was a drag cam designed for light mono game fishing and even though it could achieve 34lbs of drag it lost free spool at 6lbs. This was no good for my style of fishing ,I wanted high drag with free spool to fish reef.

Okuma Taiwan was cc'd email correspondence and eventually the standard cam was sent.

This is for those purchasing a Makaira from Australia and wanting high drag capacity with free spool.

Being hopeful, I was expecting some kind of reimbursement for all my troubles, it was eight weeks since original purchase. Nothing EXTRA came to appease my grumbles.

Replacing the cams fixed my problem and the reel has been fantastic so far.

Peter Good quality, good price not enough information supplied by distributor

WOW - what a winner! – When I first picked up the little Makaira the first thing i noticed was how solid it felt, a quick glace over it and even more features I liked, three solid side plate screws either side, a massive handle and a two speed system for deep down grunt, interchangeable lugs incase you want to harness yourself in. I was to test this reel on the kings that surround the Coromandel and initially I thought this thing could have some legs, time will tell. Unlike the other Makaira 10’s around it wasn’t gold! After chatting with the local rep about it he gave some good advice about the reel and what it can and can’t do, no anti reverse bearing so not designed for jigging but more for live bating and that suited me, I have plenty of specialised jig reels. Like always when I got home I opened it up to have a look internally and was pleasantly surprised to see a well greased reel from the factory so no need to do too much prep work. I oiled the bearings with the provided bearing oil, greased the drag and put it back together with even higher hopes than previous.

I was curious to see how the drag system would work having drag plates either side of a single washer, a good idea I thought, never seen that before, and a little read of the owner’s manual informed me that it was a new patented system called DFD or Dual Force Drag - almost like a twin drag but on one side of the spool and this eliminates frame flexing as most drag systems are push drag rather than pull drag. It had sufficient covering to provide adequate protection from water and is still very resistant. Internals parts are chunky but it’s still a very smooth reel so I was sure it would handle the work load. There is no anti reverse bearing so there is a small amount of slop in the handle but that’s to be expected with twin reverse pawls, there will always be some play.

Out on the water the reel has performed faultlessly, its well over 100 kingfish now and it’s still going great guns and raising eyebrows every day. Alot of people are commenting on how nice it is to use. The low ratio 2.1:1 is very low so hardly gets used as the high ratio at 4.7:1 is perfect. This little reel has had alot of thought put into it and to be honest is great value for money!!

Specs

• 6061-T6 machined aluminium frame with forged side plates

• Proprietary hybrid corrosion resistant stainless steel gearing

• Helical cut gears for extreme smoothness and gear meshing

• Two-speed gearing system

• Gunsmoke anodized two-speed gear shifter housing

• Cold forged, Type-II anodized, machined aluminium spool

• CRC: Corrosion Resistant Coating process

• Patented spool pin system for use with braided or mono lines

• Carbonite Dual Force drag system featuring Cal’s universal drag grease

• Custom designed thrust bearing: Alleviates side load on heavy drag settings

• 4-pcs ABEC-5 precision Sapporo stainless steel rubber sealed ball bearings

• Double-dog, proprietary silent anti-reverse system

• Ratcheting drag lever and drag cam for precise drag setting

• Patented T-Bar handle with Easy Roll graphite insert

• Heavy duty stainless steel ratcheting clicker system

• Heavy duty, precision stainless steel drive and spool shafts

• Type-II gunsmoke anodized frame, side plates, spool, drag lever and handle

• Open top frame design

• Lug and plug system on all open top reel models

• Machined thumb rest on rear cross bar for improved ergonomics

• Forged aluminium full hard anodized reel foot and reel clamp

• Machine-etched marlin logo on left side plate

• Precision placement of drain holes maximizes water removal from reel

• Special screw ports around side plate screws reduces water/corrosion build up

** Okuma 5 Year Warranty**

Specifications:

Ball bearings: 4 + 1TB

Gear Ratio: 4.7:1 & 2.1:1

Weight: 687g

Line Retrieve: 33.5" & 15"

Line Capacity: 15/320, 20/260, 25/195

- lbs/yds:

- mm/m:

Max Drag:

- At Strike: 32.1kg

- At Full: 45.4kg

youtube.com/watch?v=WMb_qyLeJQo everything apart for the servicability of gear system very little