I have a 10K that i use for plugn and i love the reel. Now i want a stella for jiggn the canal. A few people have told me that all the SW reel gears are the same, the only difference is the physical size of the gears not the toughness. Does anyone know anything about this...I was thinking about the 18k for jigging bc i thought it was a tougher reel but if the 10k is just as strong gear wise i might pick up another one of those... help please..

The gears in all of the Stella SW reels are made the same way. Obviously, those in the bigger reels are probably bigger proportionally, but they're all made the same way.

The 10K is strong enough for jigging the Canal. I have 330 yards of 40# FINS Windtamer braid with a ton of backing on mine, so you have no capacity issues, either. The reel picks up over 50" of line per crank at full spool, so it's fast enough. And it's 6-7 oz. lighter than the bigger reels.

I see more and more Stella 10Ks along the Canal and I haven't heard of any gear problems as yet.

Had a friend this week strip his gears on a stella, but then again every reel he owned he broke. I think its due to his style of fishing :confused::smash:

The gears on my 5000sw "failed" on a 15lb fish. I suspect, however, that the reel had leaked and a salt deposit got ground through them (I could see a drop of water in the reel so I know it had a leak and the horrible gear grinding/resistance improved significantly though very gradually as I fished it over the rest of the night).

Whatever, I sent it back 2 day UPS ($30 un-insured) and got it back 2 weeks (standard UPS) later for a $30 service charge. They replaced both gears, the bearing, and a seal. The service seemed very fair. They seemed to turn it around in 72 hours, but the shipping time gets exaggerated by weekends on each end so if you want it back fast you need to specify faster return shipping for another charge.

The reel's drag, casting performance, and light weight (in the 5000) makes up for a lot of sins

I've jigged the canal for hours at a time this year with my 10k. No problems so far.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I sent my 10k back because of situation similar to Numbskull's. Gears grinding and got worse the more I used it. Actually over-nighted it because I wanted a quicker turn around. Turned out they didn't have the parts so they packed it with grease and sent it back 2 day for free along with a prepaid postage to send it back in a month.

I jigged with it almost every night last season and it held up fine. With that said I only jig with a 18K now. Most would hate the additional 7 ounces or so but I don't mind it. No different then a dogfight and although the pick up is the same you can definitely burn back jigs much easier with a larger handle. Might not be enough for most to justify the weight difference but I don't mind.

As far as line capacity I try to always fill it. If jigging I like to take a few yards off each night and before you know it your well before the lip. This allows me to bump it up back taking off the braid and adding more backing. I can do this a lot more times with more braid and not have to spool up for a long while.