Fin-Nor Marquesa Lever-Drag Reel

Great reel

This reel will outperform any other reel in its class. A bought it to fish for Stripers and it could go as far as hauling in small tuna with its drag system. Almost too pretty to get dirty, a real work of art!

I have owned the Marquesa for 1 year now. I have caught everything from dolphin and sailfish, to king mackeral and the reels have performed flawlessly. Good fit and finish and extremely powerful drags. Good choice for an all around offshore fishing reel.

Reel is allready grinding and hardly able to turn handle not enough power or low enough gear for larger snapper.

Little large in my hand for casting, great on the 35LB to 50LB tuna.Great drag , very smooth .

The open top models have a built in centrifugal cast control system. I did a lot of practice casting with my MA12 using weights from 1 ounce to 4 ounces. There is almost never any issues with over-run on this reel. This reel casts like a dream and even the novice caster should have this reel mastered in a very short time. You may want to do your own research on the "T" (Top Bar) models as I don't think they have the internal centrifugal cast control like the single speed open top models. I know the MA12, MA16, MA20 and MA30 open top single speed models have centrifugal cast control.The little MA12 has one thing I did find annoying and that is a backup for the ant-reverse bearing that is not at all silent. It gives a constant clicking sound when winding. If this bothers you, it is a simple fix to remove the backup pawl and rely only on the anti-reverse bearing which is silent. I would not recommend doing this on the larger models but have no worries of anti-reverse bearing failure on a reel this small.This is really an awesome little reel if you need a conventional for jigging that is also easy to cast.UPDATE: Dropping to two stars NOT because it isn't a great little reel. It is a great little reel indeed. Zebco owns Fin-Nor and you have to go through Zebco for parts. I waited a year for a part for this reel and this reel is still in current production. Just had a Quantum (also a Zebco company) spinning reel fail and lock-up after 5 trips out because the reel was shipped completely devoid of grease on the gears. From now own if the brand name is owned by Zebco I'll pass. I can't get parts in anything close to a timely manor and the failed spinning reels which should have never left the factory put the icing on the cake for me. Zebco customer service and quality control on the quantum line is unacceptable. I could do just as well buying unbranded items straight from China.

Fin-Nor is still a great reel company. I've owned 2 of these Marquesas for 3 years and have taken 3 long range trips of 8 days or more and these have gone with me. I've got more expensive 2 speed Shimanos, Avet, Daiwas but these are my first choice when I want to cast a sardine well away from the boat for tuna or wahoo. I can cast as well as the deckhands and captain!

This reel is powerful. The real is smooth and has a smooth powerful drag system. It has beefy gears and a solid aluminum frame. The only plastic on it is the push button release to activate full drag. Speaking of drag it has carbon fiber drag disks that the company says is a strong 41 pounds. That's incredible and much stronger even than most of the big game reels out there. I bought the MA30 and I feel confident that I can pull anything in short of a 1000 lb tuna. The fish I have caught so far with it haven't really been a challenge for it. I highly recommend this reel.