For the past couple of years I’ve happily fished with the little-known Tailwalk Speaky spinning reels. They’re smooth, light and solid. They’ve done me proud and have coped (until recently) with my ridiculous lack of care. At circa-£200 they’re in the Stradic/Vanford/BG MQ bracket. We’ve never really even tried to sell them due to most anglers understandable leanings towards the Daiwa or Shimano brands for anything that isn’t getting a regular dunking (go Penn). But there’s never been any denying that they’re great reels.
At the end of last year I tentatively placed an order for just one each of their new high speed (XGX) Speaky models. I assumed they were simply shallow spooled, faster retrieve versions of the original. More than anything I just thought they’d look nice in our little Tailwalk display section at HQ. And with a lot of the Daiwa and Shimano reels so hard to get hold of anyway, there seemed no harm.
I’ve seen and received a lot of new, amazing products over the years, but few really blow my mind by exceeding expectations – as has happened with these reels. I knew they’d be nice, but they feel like a real upgrade on the original. Technically I don’t think they are, but they’re like butter… Soooooo smooth. It’s just better!! On paper they won’t look particularly light, although they still feel it. Just think more Daiwa weight than Vanford or Vanquish. I actually prefer this since some reels have gotten too light these days and don’t actually feel particularly well balanced on any rod we sell. Shallow spool reels are always slightly heavier too as there’s simply more metal required to build the spool.
This 3000 I have just taken for myself is about the same size as a 4000LT Daiwa. Somewhere between 3000 and 4000 Shimano. I love this size of reel as it’ll sit happily on any bass rod I’ll use from about 8’6” to 9’6”. I’ve thrown my favourite braid on there too, ready for action (hopefully) later this week. It weighs 270g which balances perfectly on my Apia Foojin’RS 9’ UK Custom model that’s launching here early in the summer.
All being well over the next couple of months of use (I have lots of faith tbh) we’ll get these on sale and provide spares, repairs and servicing ourselves through AOF HQ.
