Daiwa Millionaire 7HT Mag

Daiwa is a name most of us know well who are into fishing, and there is a good reason for that, they make quality gear.  Today im going to be reviewing the Daiwa Millionaire 7HT Mag, which is a Sea fishing multiplier reel.  The chances are that who ever is reading this review will already know a fair bit about fishing, reel types, and is a reasonable caster.  I’m taking on this early assumption because this reel is not a total beginners reel, unless money is no object, it is not inexpensive,in fact its right up there in the price range of the best reels available today, retailing at £299, now at around £160 upwards.  I got my reel in mid 2012 second hand, but like new, so have had a good bit of time spent with it.  For comparison I also own a Abu 6500 CT Mag elite, Swedish one, and a Daiwa Millionaire 7HT Turbo.Visually its a nice looking reel with its one piece deep blue duraluminium frame, with a gold end cap.  The aluminium Spool is a nice looking anodised gold which fits the colour scheme. The reel is trimmed off with a added gold strip which your thumb will rest on during the cast. The gold theme is continued with a slim edge seen on the outside right cap, which is from the inside plate of the removable end cap.  Just when you think you see all the the gold, we see the nice finishing touches of gold rim around the adjustable knob on the left side of the reel, more on its function later on. I really cant fault the look and finish of the reel, although over a short time some writing does come off.The reel weighs 12.2oz, spool holding 300m –15lb line, that’s just under 330 yards of 0.35 line, which is more than enough.  It has 6 bearings in total, 5 of them CRBB, these are specially treated bearings that are corrosion resistant, which also shields out salt crystals, and sand.  Finally and not least is the great gear ratio of 5.8.1, which in laymen’s terms means your going to reel in your line faster than some other reels like the first version of this reel with 5.2:1 ratio.  To purchase another spool your looking at paying £40, which is not bad considering the spool for the super tuned version of this reel is double that.There are 2 main breaking systems known for many years to help control the spool during the cast, these breaking systems are the Centrifugal which uses small break blocks which are pulled from gravity of the spinning spool againts the break rim of the inner spool, this naturally slows down the spool at its fastest r.p.m.  This system works well, but you do have to take into account that at all times the breaks will have some effect on the whole cast all the time the spool is spinning.  Next Magnets are used with a magnetic field to slow down the spool which is better because there is no physical contact with the spool itself, but does not have the effect that the blocks have, which is to put more breaking on when the spool is at its peek speeds.  Normally Magnetic systems actually have both systems in place, while if only one system was to be used, it would be just the blocks.  With this reel however things change, as this reel has no blocks at all, but just Magnets in place.  The reason this is possible is because a new system was developed by Daiwa called Magnofuge, which in its basic terms is a magnet system in which it sets itself by means of a sprung collar within the spool that under gravitational force pulls into the magnetic field only when around 30,000 r.p.m.  This system puts on the breaks for a very short time to control the initial peek speeds, then lets the reel spin on its free floating spool.  The strength of the magnet while in use can be changed via the knob on the left side of the reel , which has 11 stages, not including half clicks.I put this reel on a Sonik SK4, 13.6ft rod, this is a powerful rod so was a good test for the reel.  I put the Mags on full, and gave it hard of the ground cast, keeping in mind that the Mags wont come on until the spool gets some real speeds.  The first thing I notice was how smooth the cast felt with this reel, the line flowed off the spool with no line lift what so ever, just as id expect it to at this Mag setting.  The retrieval was so smooth, and so much faster than My Abu 6500 CT Mag elite, I really felt the difference here.  The first cast didn’t go very far, about 100 yards of so, this didn’t bother me unless it continued to be restricted across all Mag settings.  As I took the Mags down, the cast went further and further, and still no line lift until I got down to the 2.5 setting, this only left me with a few clicks until there was minimum mag control left.  At level 3 I could cast a 6oz lead a little further than my Abu 6500 ct Mag elite which only had one small single break block, I had no Mags on at all with the Abu reel,  I was using Red rocket oil in the Abu.  (Line lift is when the line is coming off the reel faster than the lead is taking it, its a sign your into risky area of the cast going wrong, but getting the best distance)I then put on the 7HT Turbo to the same rod, which is a reel below the 7HT Mag, more like the original 7HT, which in my one I had only one break block in, and also red rocket oil.  The Turbo has no Mags, and was easy to over run, this was reaching the same distance as the 7HT Mag but due to the 7HT Mag, its Mag control had so much less over run than the Turbo.  (Over run is where you have not stop the spool from spinning  after the lead has landed, the spool continues to reel of line causing slack like).After several casts I felt confident that the 7HT Mag reel will suffer from very few problems, even if you had the odd bad cast.  The following night I went fishing, and could have this reel on Mag setting 6, cast into the darkness of the sea, and know that no matter what I did, it would not over run more than a slight few coils of line which took seconds to sort.  To achieve the same distances with the other two reels, I would get more over runs, more so the 7HT Turbo with no Mag control.   The  Daiwa Millionaire 7HT Mag felt like it had the right balance for fishing, but maybe a little too harsh on its breaking power for the field caster with the oil it came with..I felt that I could get away with putting much thinner oil in this reel, so that’s just what I did, I put Tournament rocket oil in this, I could have gone for the Yellow Rocket fuel, but I wanted to see if I could get away with this oil.  After putting this oil in, I ventured down the beach, put the Mags on 4, and hit the cast, a huge smile went on my face as I saw the lead fly into the distant sea.  I took the Mags down as low as 4, and no lower could I go.  Mag setting 4 with this oil did have line lift, but I didn’t get a single crack off.  I would not even think of having this setting if a cross wind was present.  I did over the next few months have some crack off’s, this was when I had the setting on 4, but some times could be down to poor casting.  (Crack off s are caused for many reasons, but in most cases its from a huge knotted mess from slack line often called a birds nest, more line was coming off the spool than the lead could take)After the first 5 months of usage I encountered some issues with the gear slipping, and after some research I found that the slight wobble of the handle was due to there being a  gap in the pinion shaft of the gears.  There is a  pinion pin you purchase which sorts out the wobble problem, this wasn’t my issue with slipping gears.  When looking inside the gear system I found that there was nothing physically wrong with anything, but cleaned it out, and never happened again for a long time.  There are some suggestions on how to sort this out, but I didn’t 100% know what sorted mine out,  I think it was the gears needed cleaning out, and making sure the anti reverse pawl, (Part 23) had good contact with the drive shaft (Part 25).  The older Abu 6500s are built better in my opinion, iv not had any issues from my Abu 6500 CT Mag Elite, and that’s 30 years old, only time will test this out for the 7HT Mag.   Despite the minor issues I had, this reel performs, very well, and is very balanced between distance, and the ability to fish without issues. Iv often heard people suggest to a experienced caster that’s new to multipliers, to get a cheap multiplier to try it out.  I would not recommend this because they may get the  impression that any failings is down to them alone.  In such as case, if you had the money, such a person would not be disappointed with this reel, as you can grow into using a multiplier with little fuss, its almost fool proof, but comes at a cost.  There are other multipliers out there so check them out, but for s new person to multipliers, I would not suggest you get the cheapest one you can get your hands on, your most likely go back to the fix spool thinking that your experience was what others are having.If I was fishing rough ground, I would take my Abu 6500, as it feel much more robust in its gearing system.  The Daiwa 7HT Mag is a very high end reel suited to clean ground fishing, and hitting max distances with every cast.  You can pick these up second hand for around £100, but are still around the £150-£180 mark brand new at the time of this review.  On field testing, I could outcast my other reels by about 20 yards, this may not sound much, but if the fish are way out there, it can make a difference, more so when you have casted back out with no problems like crack offs and huge over runs.