OK no you know how embarising it is to have that realy comfortable pair of slippers thats falling apart but they are just so nice to wear that you cant throw them away. Or Girls, how those aligator skin winkle picker stilettos look so cooooooooooooool but they hurt like hell after two seconds wearing them.........
Well thats how I am with reels.
I use the Beever Ospray wreck reel which is cheep, looks cheep breakes very very easily but is sooooooooo nice to use and with 80m of line on it does for most dives I do. Ratchet reels for SMB are very nice and this is the best I have used so far. It has NO street (Rib) cred but it does the job.
Cut the handle down to about 25mm long before use or it will snap off during the first few rummage dives. Always have a back up reel as it will break sooner or later. In about 250 dives I am on number three.
The Custom divers reel looks very very cool but I didnt like using it the gaps in the ratchet were two big and the ratchet option was a two handed operation to set up. For a very expensive reel the internal ratchet system is rubbish.
Buddy pocket reels are prown to jamming due to their fully enclosed design and not realy designed for SMB use
Friction reels which use a centrel locking nut are great for laying line but I dont like using them for SMB deployment but if you do go for one go for the Kent tooling Stainless steel ones designed for SMB deploymnet with the bag holder on the side, very neet idea.
Soooo is there a coool reel out there that does the job and is robust in design.
YES
The McMahoon reel is very reliable and strong and nice to use and has the kind of cred that used to be aportianed to Saab owners. OK its dog ugley and very very big but it works well.
So my choice of your three would be the McMahoon but with only 50 of line on it its better to go for the big one.
ATB
Mark Chase
EDIT Blimey in the time it took to write this you had a load of replys opting for the McMahoon does this meen we hae a consensus on YD? Surley not
Various failures on my reel