Cape Cod Canal Guppy Pencil Popper Gets Creamed! 

Albie Jay thanks brother. That’s a flash to the past. Sucks it was raining and I had to angle my GoPro down to prevent the lense from getting soaked

Inurmouth Jaja it’s piece of junk lol....would never recommend this model over the traditional VS series

watchman316ly I have fished the VSX and the VR. The VR is fine for light duty beach stuff but I wouldn’t fish the canal with one regularly. In comparison to the VS, the VR is really just a watered down version. A bit smoother for sure but that’s because it lacks the same leveling of sealing that a true VS does. The VS is simply a machine of a reel...few moving parts, nothing fancy about it that you don’t need. When you use one it feels like you’re using a purpose built tool made for the guy who is using it as such, and doesn’t want to worry about failure while out on the rocks or in the surf. The VR lacks the robustness of the Van Staal and was really created to bridge the gap between consumer level reels and the high end VS. Everything is watered down, from the amount of materials used in the “transmission” of the reel, to the reel housing itself. It’s just fine for the average fisherman, but the antireverse shat the bed on me after a few months of turning 30 lb class fish in 4-5 knot current.

Thank you so much! Nothing compares to hearing it from someone who has truly used it and also experience when the reel starts to reach its match. I think I will stick with my Daiwa Saltiga and also the Shimano Stella then.

Nick Vasile I’d go with 40lb. And goo goo man sells them on his Facebook page sometimes. I just got lucky

@@DanEvan Thanks Dan! I'll go with 40. I'll try and see if he has any plugs available. Thx again.

Nick Vasile yeah man I mean if you’re looking for good pencils you can’t beat Guppy’s for a great all arounder.

Dan, much appreciated. I'll look into a few guppy's. Thx again.

Nick Vasile happy to help brother!

FishingFreak44 Yes, it's an extremely versatile reel. I have a VR200 with a 175 spool. Because they share the same body and rotor, I can fish my 11' canal rod with the 200, swap spools, and put the reel on my 9' Lamiglas 3/4-3.5 oz. back bay/creek rod! A serious word of advice though. This reel comes with a bailless conversion kit. Do NOT convert the reel to a manual pick up like the VS series. The VR series is much smoother than the VS because it doesn't have quite as many seals, and it's also lighter. This causes the rotor to spin 360 degrees when you cast with any kind of effort bringing the bail arm around and catching the line. I lost 3 high dollar plugs and then snapped the rod in this video clean in half. Because the VR series is fairly new, not many people have converted it yet. After speaking with other people, and Craig Cantelmo from Van Staal about this issue, they will be adding an additional bushing to the kit to help slow the rotor down. My advice? 100% keep the bail on and you'll never be disappointed. It's extremely light, smooth, has 42 pounds of drag, and you can break it down yourself with a single tool (you can tell the tolerances and machining is top notch) and do any required maintenance. Hope this helped!

Dan Evan Fishing wow great info I need to ask van Staal at the saltwater show if they addressed this! Great video as always man.

Thanks for the advice, I'm always open for constructive criticism! Anything to improve not just the release, but the fish's recovery once they are out of sight! The canal current is no place to let an exhausted, in shock fish.