Shimano stella 1000FE vs Malabar groupers 1500gm

Here's a new addition to the family that needs no introduction, the Shimano Stella 1000FE. Before this little gem even sees sunlight, I'm stripping it apart to check out its innards, build quality and fitment tuning.

Here's the low down.

1000FE on the operating cloth fully loaded with 6lbs tuffline.

Drag force is super smooth with this one. Will drop in carbontex next for some more tests. Shielded bearing supported spool (upper), no nasty surprises there with aluminum wear.

Tiny line roller supported with 2 bearings, one is with special coating, the other's plain looking with lots of shims in between to keep load forces strictly on the bearings. Oiled, marine grease rubbed down and packed in the roller assembly housing where you get the most water(salt) intrusion here.

The finer details in finishing, usually on other reels the bail trip wire is rested 'naked' on the rotor housing. This little fella comes with a plastic protective sleeve to take on any wear abuse, if there were to have any in this part of the reel.

Another bearing to support the spool (lower). No surprises here. Just needed bearing oil and marine grease rubbed down.

Rotor nut cap and rubber shields exposed, note the bearing that sits in the nut has a brass sleeve for a nice snug fit for the floating shaft. Not really sure why the shaft wasn't designed to fit using standard bearings without additional sleeves like the bigger SW8000 and above Stellas or Twinpowers.

The worse thing about this reel is the 'rear' chrome plastic cap that has an obscure screw through the inside of the body covered with a rubber cork. As the red arrow points, the plastic sleeve used in the body to tunnel the screw through. It's a hassle to remove the screw as you need to use quite a long reach precision screw drivers. Everything else is nicely shim fitted to as little free play as possible. Even the body screws comes with washers, something you don't see on any of the cheaper Shimano reels. All greased up with no tuning needed, yet.

"The Shimano Stella 1000FE pairs perfectly with an ultra light rod such as the Evergreen Temujin "The Spider" says evil friends around me. This combo seems to be 'THE' ultralight gear with powerful backbone and I've seen this combo in action hauling mekong cats the size of a golden retriever. Picture or it didn't happen!

I took the opportunity of a recent public holiday weekday to try this little combo out during the wee hours of the morning at a local paid pond. Upon arrival, there was no one to be seen and even the competitor pond was closed for business due to the public holiday. Luckily, this pond was open and the operator said that they've just reorganized the ponds according to species instead of mixing them up. 1 pond for finger mark snappers, 1 pond for Malabar groupers and the third for barramundis. And only 2 days ago, they've released 500 new fishes into each pond and not much have been fished out of the pond since as they were spooked and needed some time to get used to the new environment.

This calls for sinking subtle action lures to attract some strikes. As I combed through from the beginning of both grouper and snapper ponds, there wasn't a single bite or missed kisses. Slow to fast retrieves, twitches, long pauses, nothing seemed to work. Or perhaps the fish just wasn't where I expected them to be.

When I reached towards the end where so called 'fresh' sea water was being pumped in, that's when things start to get interesting in the grouper pond. I had a couple of missed strikes and botched hook ups when retrieved slowly. I then cast towards the same direction once again but tried a dead slow retrieve knocking on the bottom with extra long pauses. That's when the party started.

First victim using Evergreen's PropMagic 75 worked dead slow with extra long pauses. This little fella produced some feisty spurts of bull runs and took some drag when dialed to about 75-80% tight. This grouper weighs in at about 1.4kg, tasty fella too.

Second victim, 2 earlier botched hook ups but when cast into the same zone with longer pause, the grouper struck again and again so long as it's in front of their kisser. Small fella at about 1.3kg, released.

Third victim, or 4th, earlier bugger escaped when I was trying to land the bugger. IMA trip 66 worked super slow and occasionally letting it slalom drop down to the strike zone. This grouper tipped 1.8kg on the scales, released to fight another day.

5th or 6th, several misses earlier, but an extended pause registered nothing until I start to reel it back in to realize that the lure was already in the mouth swimming towards me. DUO Spinbait 80 worked as 'spybait' crawling the bottom. This little grouper almost straightened the split ring for the hook. Feisty fella at 1.4kg, released.

Another willing customer entertaining my DUO Spinbait 80 crawling the bottom near the grouper's congress party. Another fella at about 1.6kg, solid and tasty when steamed with soy sauce.

The groupers were mostly congregated around a small area towards the end of the pond and I had a blast hauling these little bulls using this ultralight ultra-powerful combo with little hassle. Now I understand why this is 'THE' ultralight gear that is a must have for our application here.

Scores? Shimano Stella 1000FE 'Infinity', Malabar groupers 1500gm 'Tasty'.