Product Review: KastKing Mela 4000 Spinning Reel

Company Description:  The KastKing Mela Spinning Reel is light, smooth, powerful, and comes with a free spool! When other brands charge premium price for the so called fame, we cut our price to give more value back to our customers!

You will love the features of the Mela Spinning Reel that includes: 10 + 1 shielded stainless steel bearings, instant stop anti-reverse, CNC machined aluminum handle and exquisite aluminum spool, plus a spre graphite spool and most of all the up to 20lb max drag power.

Amazing Aerospace- grade aluminum honeycomb design spool gives you a fishing reel with strength and light weight. Mela spinning reels are equipped with: precision brass gears, hardened megal main shaft, 10 shielded stainless steel bearings, clutch roller bearing, and interchangeable right or left hand CNC machined handle.

Flawless light weight graphite spinning reel body with carbon black finish is corrosion proof. The best thng about a Mela Spinning REel is its great features at an affordable price. Compare a KastKing Mela spinning reel to a similar size fishing reel that costs much more, such as a reel from Shimano, Penn, Daiwa, Okuma, Lew's or other fishing reel brands. KastKing is an ICAST 2015 award winning brand.

Specs:
Bearings: 10+1
Gear Ratio: 4.8:1
Line Capacity: 10LB/195Yds, 12/140yds, 15/110
Max Drag: 20LB
Weight: 12 oz.

Review:  I got the KastKing Mela 4000 as a birthday gift this year from my wife and kids.  A welcome gift that was right on time since I had broken one of my reels last fishing season.

On first view I couldn't be happier with the Mela 4000 spinning reel.  It's a stout real that comes with an additional spool, which not many companies provide any more.  While the second spool is simply a plastic spool, the main spool is made of high quality aluminum and helps balance out the reel perfectly.

The main spool I have spooled with 20lb braided line with a 6lb flourocarbon leader.  The spare spool is spooled with 8lb monofilament designed for spinning reels. I went with these combinations because using this reel for casting hair jigs ranging from 1/8oz. to 1/4oz which are ideal baits for this spinning reel.

On top of good the quality is of the reel, the price point is something that is affordable for any angler no matter what their budget is.  A price point thats achieved by selling straight to anglers rather than to retailers then anglers.  The fact that Eposeidon has taken a couple of players out of he supply chain has taken quite a bit of cost of the marketing of the reel which normally would've been passed down to the consumer

So far I've had all good experience with the Mela 4000 with the exception of one thing.  The first time I fished with it the reel was noisey due to a lack of lubrication on the shaft. However once lubed it worked absolutely great.  I'll definitely be purchasing another and possibly giving one away on my youtube channel as well.

Price: $35.98

Product Review: Matzuo Nano Kroaker Frog

Company Description:  The Matzuo Nano Kroaker Frog is the perfect floating bait for hard to reach bass.  Fish this bait in lily pads, timber or any other heavy cover.  The cupped mouth spits a large plume of water when popped. Offered in a variety of realistic finishes for nearly all conditions.  This floating frog bait is a true trophy producer!

Features Benefits:  The Nano Kroaker Frog has a cupped mouth for better popping action as well as multi-strand legs and duel weedless black nickel Matzuo hooks. The Nano frog comes in both 2 inch (1/4 oz.)  and 3.5 inch (5/8 oz) sizes to fit your desires.  Finally the Nano Kroaker has a small disk at the base of the frogs body which weighs the rear end down for longer cast as well as keeps the rear portion of the bait below the head for a more realistic action on retrieval.

Review:  Initially I fished this bait as is out of the box with no alterations.  To say the least  I was initially very happy with the bait as on the first cast a small 12 inch bass exploded from under some lily pads and inhaled it.

Honestly this was the case pretty often however what I learned pretty quickly was that this bait suffered

from the same issues as many of the other hollow bodied frogs.  First, the legs out of the packaging are far too long as a result when a fish took it out on open water many times the fish would grab the legs and pull it under on short strikes.  This ultimately resulted in more missed fish than I would've liked.

The second problem I noticed was that they hooks are bent in too deeply which didn't really make much of a difference with smaller bass that took the bait.  However whenever I set the hook on larger bass because of the sharp bend on the hooks often I'd pull the bait out of the fishes mouth not getting a good hook set.  That's not to say that the hooks aren't sharp, in fact the hooks are very nice especially given the lower price point of the Nano Kroaker Frog.

Lastly one unique thing that happens with this frog, not sure if I want to call it a problem just yet, is that due to the weighted disc in the rear of the body this frog sinks below the surface.  While this flaw is something I'm sure the people at Matzuo didn't intend to have it actually didn't stop bass from attacking
this bait.  In fact I've caught at least ten bass that attacked this frog while it was swimming below the surface.  Overall I give this bait a 4 stars because of the lack of floating and minor tuning issues out of the package and the fact that the cupped mouth really doesn't add much popping sound to the retrieve.

Pros:  The best thing about this frog is that when fish are not really interested in eating bigger frogs the Nano Kroaker Frog draws them through the muck.  As well with the weighted disk in the rear of the bait it imparts a great life like action with the flick of a wrist.

Cons:  First the legs, like on other frogs on the market, are too long out of the package which often leads to missed fish because they grab the legs rather than the body of the bait.  As well the nickel hooks are angled too deeply over the body which has led to several lost larger bass due to inability to set the hook.  Lastly the same weighted disk which aids in casting and imparts great action, causes the bait to sink rather than float as designed. 

Price:  $3.49 - $3.99