Fishing for big heavy fish that rely on their sheer bulk and the force of the tide to tilt the balance of escape their way demands tough, robust reliable tackle to give some of that balance back to the angler. In particular I am thinking here about huge common skate which will, by applying sustained pressure to every item of your outfit find and exploit any weak links, particularly when they clamp themselves to the sea bed, or suddenly make a power dive back down after you have painfully managed to gain a few yards of line. Porbeagle sharks, despite being round fish and therefore free swimmers, also like to slug it out deep, and like the skate are well capable of finding and exploiting any suspect or known weak links. So it is vitally important that every tackle item and every knot is up to the job. For the most part this comes down to strength and resilience. But in the case of a reel which has many moving parts and must also withstand tremendous measures of spool compression as well as direct pull pressure, making the right choice will quite literally massive contribution to any big skate or porbeagle shark encounter outcome. So you need to choose and load your reel very carefully, which is something I have always tried to do.

For me, simplicity is the key when playing a really big fish. A carefully set up lever which can be backed off in an instant when called upon, and a robust construction which you can trust not to give up part way through the job are the key essentials. Quality reliable bearings and good leverage from the handle complete the requirements list. The more basic a reel is, the less there is to go wrong, and providing you can load around 500 metres of quality 50 pound breaking strain braid on to it, you are in the right ball park. One such a reel I have been trialling recently with this and a fair amount of slugging foreign fishing in mind is the Fladen Warbird 25. The side plates trap fittings to attach waist harness clips, the spool is made from plated crush resistant aluminium, and the comfortable oversized handle has three adjustment holes to match the level of anticipated cranking pressure to match the situation at hand. It also boasts two stainless steel ball bearings and a water resistant clutch to maximise subtle reliable adjustment. In some ways it reminds me of my Shimano TLD25 which I have for some years been using for the same type of work, but this time with a heavier frame. I trust however that will be the only point of similarity between the two, as the TLD line release and drag lever mechanism has now given up the ghost and can only be used by loosening and tightening the drag tension knob.