*Bought a 500 for an ultralight rod. It's very smooth **enjoyable.fishing** recommend casts great. One odd thing- the bale wire is a bit heavy diameter in my opinion for a reel of this size. But a great purchase.*
Great video, I love my ultegras & did the washer upgrade to Teflon PTFE washers. Wow the difference is plain to see, in less than half a turn my drag goes from locked up to free spool. But it also gives you ultra fine control of the drag. For me personally it raises the question why are reels still sold with cheap velvet washers, when the range of materials available today is so extensive.
never thought id ever need to upgrade any shamano reels, but, i decided to give this a go..believe me its made one hell of a difference..a damn good vid of an upgrade that anyone can do with ease.. A MILLION THANKS FOR THIS VID...
A very nice upgrade Maff. I did a similar thing to upgrade my Daiwa Emcast Evo reels to baitrunners by removing the spool spring. All I now need to do is adjust the drag on the front spool by loosening or tightening to allow line to be taken. This saved me money by not having to purchase new bait runner reels :)
Been using 10000DL RB bait runners. Great reel. Just upgraded to the 14000 ultegra. Had my first session earlier this week. I found exactly the same. Sticking and coming from a very smooth baitrunner I didn't like it. So just ordered the ice washers. Thank you for the video.
Thank Mat great video mate, watch it yesterday rang future fishing got the ice washers next day, followed your video all done in 24 hrs. Top bloke enjoy your Gin and tonic best regards Noel Stafford
I recently went on the future fishing website just to see if they still had them washers available & at what cost they were as i was looking at toying with the idea of upgrading my reels anyway, turns out if you buy the reels in question (the ultegra 14000 xtd's) the ice drag washers are all included free of charge, my mind was made up there & then & i ordered a pair of the reels, turned up a couple of days later, i have since swapped the washers as described in your video for the ice drag ones, i've also just spooled up all 4 spools with spanking new line earlier today, now i just need to book a session out soon to try them out, cheers mate 👍😁
thats good to know that they were designed so badly at first. Its quite funny because all reviews seem to point this to being one of the better carp reels for long distance casting
Great video this! I have mirrored how you have come about these washers and I haven’t got them yet but I’m hoping they will solve all my problems! It is mystifying that Shimano haven’t actually replaced the original washers with these as standard. I was wondering are there any other upgrades that you can do on these reels? I have heard about upgraded line clips but haven’t seen anything about them.
Question for you guys can I take my shimano xsc ci4 and decrease the quick drag? Im using it for surfcasting in South Africa and we have some very quick fish here and we need more adjustment on the drag not less. Would appreciate if anyone knew how to reverse the process.
What would u recommend on what size spacers to use 1000 or 3500 useing .35mm line how much would a 10000 use and 3500 use looking at say putting 250 300 on can u advise cheers
Hi Mark, I dont know but i really I hope so that was ba very bad design and cost me many tangles and birds nest before i got semi used to it and three line gaurd purchases later
Sorry Ben always like to reply to comments and i missed yours so a belated thank you for commenting you would have had these things fitted now...what do you think?
Im sure i replied to this sorry for the 6 month delay in the reply but thank you, and 6 months on and they work a treat Sgt G, regards Wo2 T ( maff t uk :-)
Chris used these quite a lot now and they have performed fantastically, you wont be disappointed good luck, tight lines, and thanks for the comment :-)
Really appreciate you getting back to me, I knew you would be pleased but you just got to see it for yourself. you wait until you play a good fish, so easy to control. cheers Chris, regards Matt
Are these really needed if you use the backwind system, I only use clutch while it's set on the alarms, to play fish in backwind, and never clutch to play thee fish.
Hello Robert, I would have to say no, needed is not how i would look at it but i do believe they make a massive difference to the way i personally fish so for me it is for the greater good. regards Matt and thanks for your comment 👍
I am a backwinder instead of using the drag (unless using braided mainlines) as I hate line twist especially with fluorocarbon (which I use the most). The washer conversion makes the QD function much faster than out of box in that you can go from locked up to ‘free spool’ in half a turn of the cap. In all honesty speeding up the drag is a hinderance if you use the clutch to play fish on due to there is less margin for error. Same applies on my Daiwa reels I have also converted. This is the reason why reel manufacturers don’t use these as standard because the margin of error is not there when playing fish on the clutch. If you have Daiwa reels that need the spool cap converting from the spring to completely solid, it is literally one or two ‘notches’ from going from perfect clutch to completely free spinning & the last thing you want when playing fish! To get around this you can make the clutch slightly faster for free spool work as well as retaining the best possibly quality clutch is by just changing the washers in the spools leaving the micro adjustable spring in the cap. This will speed things up a bit but not to the point where the clutch is essentially ruined because of the lack of compression if fully converted. Hard to explain in words & much easier to demonstrate but I don’t do videos ☹️
Thanks Jason and I will say with my recent trip to France these reels were just fantastic dealing with huge cat fish and my now new French PB of 56.12 lb woohooo :-)
My shimano 14000s are so stiff please help they’re basically knew and so stiff I was wondering if I need to grease them or something I don’t get why they’ve got so stiff
When you say stiff do you mean just turning the handle or the spools are hard to turn can you send me a bit more info and I will see what we can do for you
Maff T UK the drag used to be super smooth and after half or one turn easily let line run but now they’re stiff , I’ve tried lubricant and taking them apart from this video and I’ll see what happens
@@IntoMotivate it certainly sounds like friction stick from the start try cleaning all your velvet washers completely of all grease. Remove every bit of oil grease from the spool and give it a proper clean put it back together try it see how it feels, if it feels better get a silicone lubricant and try that rather than grease or better still just replace them with the ice drag system and you will also loose the friction stick that I explain on the vid... just try the full clean first 👍
www.birdstackle.co.uk/brands/ice-drag-system-washers-sets-ice-drag-system-washers-sets-at.html Here's just one place Mad Manc but you can shop around a bit for the best price but your working on £30.00 for three reels, regards Matt
bogeyboy4044 Im going to say no on this one, its about you, your experience, and faith in your end line tackle. I dont know how else to explain it. If im understanding your question correctly then you are the fighting drag setting. are you going to lock down and pull like mad or are you going to play it safe and steady. sorry dont know how else to answer that one for this upgrade. regards matt
@@MaffTUK I like setting my drag with a little give and adjust accordingly it works for me I think, I don't lose many fish but I am not a pro. I get out when I can. I seem to spend more time here and listen to you guys LOL. What ever you guys n gals are doing works so thanks for that. OH! Thanks for the response.
Great video i just bought them and was thinking to do that also and i saw a video that they use carbon rings is your system somewhat simelar as carbon what should i do thanks
Hello Will' I can only comment on what ive got and done but i will say this... I have nothing to do with the sale of this product but they are awesome what a huge difference and it is something you would not regret. regards Matt
Hi mate, if the basic set up is the same with the number of washers then I cannot see a reason why not Ive checked out the ice drag web site and all seems ok. it does make a massive difference when playing fish. regards Matt
Hello Firri, Personally I used kitchen roll and and a couple of cotton buds nothing else was required but if you want you can use an alcohol wipe type cleaner to really get in there, but i managed fine without :-) regards Matt
Hi m8 just need advice always been using bait runner xta medium LC now considering changing to xtb medium bait runner or Shimano ultegra 1400. But not sure which one should I choose. Thanks for any help.
arek mark, now then I used bait runners for my first years and loved them. However the minute I changed to 14000 and upgraded the drag system. I can't look back. 14000 have stole the show but it has to be with the upgrade. This is totally my personal opinion.
Hello there, No you dont have to do this at all, the benefit of doing so is in the title, it enables you to lock down the clutch much quicker and allows you a more reactive response and finer control when playing a fish, I hope that answers your question for you, Regards Matt
Yes they are "West Wood" the spares you get in the box are all black, and you see a lot of chaps swap them over, but I like the bling effect, BTW these have performed fantastic since the upgrade still totally recommended and I have nothing to do with the product or sales.
I'm going to buy the ice washers for my ultegra 14000 xtb's but seen you can get high speed drag spool caps at futurefishing,probably best getting both
My mate Dave who you see in the vids also thought the same but hes not to happy with the drag spool caps something to do with being a bit fiddly I dont know but he got his reels, upgraded the spools and eventually told me he didnt like them, I cant speak of them personally as i don't have them. now you have a dilemma :-)... personally try the cheapest option first and see how you get on, if you dont like then try the other..
How do you find the reels Matt? Ive seen some stuff written about them that makes me think they are the marmite of reels. Personally I like Shimano stuff, but some seem to hate it.......even more than they hate Korda. 😂
I like the build of Shimano and their gearing seems to be much better quality alround as for the reels I do like them and my casting now has increased massively, I was tempted by the Shimano big pit bait runners but they looked massive and probably wouldn't fit on my pod. I think time will tell and it is a learning curve, I certainly have to slow down wile i'm winding in as the gearing is much faster and I'm flying out of the water. So I'm currently performing like a week one recruit. So scores on the doors:- 1. without the upgrade they stood at 8/10 2. with this upgrade 9.5/10 3. My ability to look like a pro using them -1 /10 :-) regards Matt
ooh here we go..... I see a big spend coming on LOL, just remember Gary when the Mrs Asks how much was that? its always "just under £50 for the lot" That way you can always say your sorry I thought you meant something else :-)
