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Old 04-09-2005, 02:29 PM   #1
snake slinger
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how maeny surf caught fish were on a 704?penn needs to step up to the plate
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Old 04-09-2005, 03:06 PM   #2
Mike P
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Here's what I would suggest.

Van Staal proved there was a market for a premium spinning reel. Right now, Penn has written off that market. Shimano and Daiwa jumped in with both feet, with the Stella and Saltiga. They're proving guys will spend $600-$700, or even close to $800, for a quality product. If you could engineer a similar product, build it here, and bring it to the market in the $400-$500 price point, you'd have an instant success.

You want to make Zebco rue the day they ever acquired Van Staal? Re-engineer the 704 and 706. One little tweak--figure a way to retro-design them with "instant" roller-bearing anti-reverse. You could bump the price to $200 or even $250 and sell every one you make. Bring back the 710 and 712 with the same tweak---maybe even manual conversion capability, and you'd wipe the VS 150 and 100 out.

Oh yeah---one other thing. Tell the guys in production to ship the damn things with adequate grease inside a new reel. Most of the Slammers are dry as a bone inside, new out of the box. I hate spending $135 for a reel only to have to break it down and grease it before I use it.
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Old 04-09-2005, 06:45 PM   #3
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I bet MikeCC has sold 75 Shimano to a lonely 1 Penn (both spin)
Close chris. we have sold 78 Shimano and only 1 Penn Spinning (706) but we have sold 6 Penn 113HSP ,1 - 330GTI and only 1 Shimano Boat reel.

This is lhe last post for me on this subject.

I'll I have to say is there is no reason for me to believe in Penn when the Company does not believe in themselves.

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Old 04-09-2005, 07:27 PM   #4
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Shimano makes a fantastic reel, and has terrific customer service.

But I have to echo everything Mike P just said. I love my VS, but needing another spinner I fretted over another VS or the Saltiga. I ended up buying a 704 off ebay...I would have easily spent up to 400 on any other product that had a nice anti-reverse and could deal with the suds...

-spence
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Old 04-10-2005, 11:05 AM   #5
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mike p hit the nail on the head.
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Old 04-11-2005, 01:25 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mikecc
Close chris. we have sold 78 Shimano and only 1 Penn Spinning (706) but we have sold 6 Penn 113HSP ,1 - 330GTI and only 1 Shimano Boat reel.

This is lhe last post for me on this subject.

I'll I have to say is there is no reason for me to believe in Penn when the Company does not believe in themselves.
OUCH!!!

MikeCC, How about this for believing: Within five years, Penn will regain any lost ground from the past 15 year hiatus and move to the top of the food chain once again. Don't worry, there are still many that believe in Penn, and this includes Dealers up and down and around the coast. And as far as believing, Penn believes in Dealers that believe in us.

Here we are, launching new, improved, and revolutionary products and/or accessories; not really the sign of a company that does not believe in itself. What about the new Penn Dura-Drag, the Baja Special, the 118 new rods that we designed for 2005, the new fishing line that we launched this January, the new XXXX and XXXX-X that we can't talk about yet? I don't get the impression that we don't believe in ourselves, quite the contrary...
BK
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Old 04-11-2005, 01:39 PM   #7
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I have a 560 Slammer and when I first used the reel I really liked it. Was very smooth and seemed to have a good drag. Maybe it is just me but whenever I dunk this reel, the drag is almost non-existant. One thing I think would have been a good idea is to have put a bronze main gear on the slammer instead of whatever that metal is on there now. I broke a couple of teeth on the main gear this past season.
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Old 04-11-2005, 02:02 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by rwilhelm
I have a 560 Slammer and when I first used the reel I really liked it. Was very smooth and seemed to have a good drag. Maybe it is just me but whenever I dunk this reel, the drag is almost non-existant. One thing I think would have been a good idea is to have put a bronze main gear on the slammer instead of whatever that metal is on there now. I broke a couple of teeth on the main gear this past season.
Not sure why the drag would disappate when dunked, as you should have a sealed drag knob, and with the drag under-the-spool, there is much less chance for water to intrude. Check to see if the drab knob has a small gasket, if not, I would recommend picking up another one from your local Penn Dealer or call our Parts department. If you have the gasket, I'd then check to make sure the drag plate is screwed down. Other than that, I don't have an answer.

I guess I should also find out, are you wetsuiting with the reel, or is this an occassional wave breaking over you that is causing this to occur. If wetsuiting, I would recommend a drag lube that will help keep water from instruding. I would also disassemble the reel after each trip, and rebuild, as the Slammer is not a water proof reel like the Van Staal.

As far as the main gear, I believe it is a hardened naval bronze, so I am not sure why there would be any problems. Without seeing the reel, or the condition is was in, I am working blind, so I won't try to guess what the issue might be. Has this been repaired already? If not, I would love to have it sent to me for evaluation.

Feel free to get back to me at your convenience.
BK
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Old 04-11-2005, 01:43 PM   #9
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Again, please feel free to email with specific questions.

Thanks for the commentary and opportunity to reply. THere will always be those that hate, disagree with everything we are doing, and have nothing but negative to say. Great, bring it on; Penn can't be everything to everyone. As long as we are making reels/rods/products that I can personally say I would fish with, I'm a happy camper. Have a great season, and tight lines to all.

Looking forward to some emails with specific questions.

Best regards,
Brent
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Old 04-11-2005, 01:51 PM   #10
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And a big horrah for Penn! In China, it is estimated by many that of the 10 million children out of school, over 5 million are working in factories! Labor cost will drop, prices will go up and we get IMO, you sold your soul to the devil
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Old 04-11-2005, 01:55 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by outfished
And a big horrah for Penn! In China, it is estimated by many that of the 10 million children out of school, over 5 million are working in factories! Labor cost will drop, prices will go up and we get IMO, you sold your soul to the devil
Do you own any Ticas? Guess where they are made?

Penn's a little late to the game outsourcing their manufacturing to the Chinese.
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Old 04-11-2005, 02:26 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by outfished
And a big horrah for Penn! In China, it is estimated by many that of the 10 million children out of school, over 5 million are working in factories! Labor cost will drop, prices will go up and we get IMO, you sold your soul to the devil
Yup, labor is cheap in CHina. Once they get their act together it will be cheap somewhere else. It is a pretty simple math equation to perform. Take a spinning reel that is more labor intensive to assemble than it is to make the parts, take one very well-paid US worker versus the on-going rate of a CHinese factory worker. One of our US workers will pay for an entire assembly line. Factor in the fact that Penn was losing more than $3million per year at our Spinning Reel Factory, and we were faced with three decisions:
1. Stop selling spinning reels altogether. Save a $3mil lost, stop selling all spinning reek products, while foreign competition continues to pump reel after reel into the market.

2. Make Reels in the US and lose $3mil/yr or double or triple the price of our reels Not an option. We would be better off with the first option.

or...

3. Close US Factory, save $3mil/year, help find employment and do the right thing for displaced employees, and import spinning reels that are made to Penn specifications so Penn can make money and keep employing the three hundred other US workers at Penn. Someone inside our group said this best, It is not how many people we are losing, but how many we can save.

What is you decision if faced with these three options??? Sold our soul to the devil? I think not. Walk a mile before casting the first accussation. No one likes what is going on, but at the end of the day, a company has to be profitable and viable if it is to survive.

How about an incentive for moving offshore courtesy of our good goverment and their abiliity to tax. Here is an interesting little tax we all pay, the Federal Excise tax levied on all fishing related products. In its simplest form, this is a 10% tax paid on all fishing products. It is calculated upon the first price paid for an item when it is sold in the US. So when Penn sells an item made in the US, we are already at an extreme disadvantage to our foreign compeition. What they will do is sell the product into the US at a lower value, possibly their cost, to a separate holding company, who then "sells" the product back to their US counterpart company. OK, so it costs them $1 to sell an item, and they pay a 10cent tax on this. They can then markup the item to distributors and dealers at a disadvantage to Penn because we must pay the 10% on the first price sold (often to distributors). So lets say instead of the $1 our competition is selling their product at, we are at $8. Our tax is 80cents compared to their 10cents. This is a very elementary version of what takes place, but I am sure anyone can get an idea how we are already behind the proverbial 8-ball with foreign competition.

Penn is trying to keep jobs in the US, and will do so to the best of our abilities, but the tackle industry is the laggard in the great outsourcing project that is China. Take a look at just about any textile, clock, toaster, microwave, etc. Manufacturing is becoming more and more impossible in the US, and we are managaging to maintain a lion share of our reels as still being built in the US.

Brent Kane
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Old 04-10-2005, 12:28 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike P

You want to make Zebco rue the day they ever acquired Van Staal? Re-engineer the 704 and 706. One little tweak--figure a way to retro-design them with "instant" roller-bearing anti-reverse. You could bump the price to $200 or even $250 and sell every one you make. Bring back the 710 and 712 with the same tweak---maybe even manual conversion capability, and you'd wipe the VS 150 and 100 out.
Available Manual conversion
Instant Reverse
Tapered Spool
Large Roller
Sealed Drag
Ventilated/Cross drilled spool * cup
Otherwise gasketed/sealed reel
Get rid of the damn clicker (pisses off some nighttime guys that don't lube the crap out of it)
Fix the Bail Flip

~Fix the Bait~ ~Pogies Forever~

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Old 04-10-2005, 01:30 PM   #14
Mike P
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Roller bearing "instant" anti-reverse would do away with the clicker. No one I know back-reels those things with the anti-reverse off anyway, so there's no need for a switchable on/off anti-reverse. All it would do is add needless parts to a simple design.

Some machinists already slot the rotor cups, and most users drill the bottom of the cup. It's possible to make them that way (even with cast aluminum) without weaking the cup.

You don't even have to make them "sealed" like the VS. They're so simply designed inside that anyone who can turn a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench can break it down, clean it and re-lube them in less than half an hour.

For guys who want a bail, you could design the 704/710/712 so the bail only flips manually, like the Saltiga's. I can do it now by using the manual conversion kit, if I wanted a 704 with a bail that only flips by hand. I prefer the pure manual pick-up, but using the piece of the conversion kit that locks down the external bail trip, and removing the bail spring, you can have a "manual bail" instead of a pick-up.

The biggest beef guys have with Van Staal, besides the price, is the costly "annual service", and the difficulty in self-servicing them. I'm telling you, with mine and John's tweaks to the 7-series Spinfishers, you'd put a big dent in VS sales. We're out there fishing with the hard cores, and we listen. Penn management should listen, too. I know the surfcasting market is kind of a niche one, but the potential to sell these "Penn Staal" dreams is there
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Old 04-10-2005, 01:45 PM   #15
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Brent, print all this out and take it to management, your company should listen hard to this advise, they could spend thousands of dollars and up in market research, and not come up with advise as good as what's been written here.
Build them like the above recommendations, and watch them fly.
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Old 04-11-2005, 08:20 AM   #16
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Man years ago, a top executive at Motorola decided to actually listen to an employee and the company took offfrom there.
Many years ago, top executives at Sony said that they will CREATE a market and people will comply. That was a big FLOP. It was only until they looked at what the market wanted (read: Unmet Needs) that they succeeded.

If people at Penn would listen to what the majority of anglers are asking for, and have a little PASSION, Penn would be an All-Star company.

The company has been sitting on its laurels for too long. Oldsmobile was first, Buick wil be next. Don't follow the corwd, do something about it. Improve your reels!!
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Old 04-11-2005, 09:08 AM   #17
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Brent,
Are the 704 and 706Z going to remain the same? Is production going to be decreased on these?

Thanks,

Rich
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Old 04-11-2005, 01:05 PM   #18
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Couldn't Agree More

Quote:
Originally Posted by PurpelNoon
Man years ago, a top executive at Motorola decided to actually listen to an employee and the company took offfrom there.
Many years ago, top executives at Sony said that they will CREATE a market and people will comply. That was a big FLOP. It was only until they looked at what the market wanted (read: Unmet Needs) that they succeeded.

If people at Penn would listen to what the majority of anglers are asking for, and have a little PASSION, Penn would be an All-Star company.

The company has been sitting on its laurels for too long. Oldsmobile was first, Buick wil be next. Don't follow the corwd, do something about it. Improve your reels!!
DO you think five years ago, a manager from Penn would have taken the time to read, write, and reply to message boards. I know the old company was high on their horse. I can't say that of those that are in place now. Here I am reading the good, the bad, and the ugly about Penn and getting fired up over some of the commentary. Great thing about it, is I am in a position to do something about it and to incorporate the useful (both the good, bad, and the ugly) into improvements. Trust me when I say that many of the comments will be voiced in future meetings.

Good thing that the management team in place is hungry and not afraid of change. In addiiton PASSION, there will also be HARD WORK, failed attempts, good news, and bad news. In the end, there will be a company taking back its good name.

Thanks,
Brent
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