Sixgill Fishing Hyperion Reel Review

When Sixgill Fishing offered a 30% discount on their casting reels I thought I'd buy one and give it a good testing.  I ordered the Hyperion 6.3:1 which is their top of the line reel and the price seemed right at $149.00 even without the discount.  Well the price would be right if the reel performed.  I've bought cheaper reels before with mixed results.  I've tried $20 reels from China, waste of money and I've also tried the Academy Sports and Outdoors H2O Xpress Mettle reels which run about $60 and found they are excellent.  I normally fish with Quantum PT Smokes that run about $200 and I judge all other reels against the Smokes.

I received my Hyperion the first week in October and in time to fish it in a tournament that coming weekend.  As you can see from the picture the Hyperion is a good looking reel and it was well packaged.   The cork handles are very nice, but I did have issues with one of the end screw cover coming loose.  Little things like that are very annoying while fishing and specially when you are fishing a tournament.   I actually fished two tournaments with this reel.  I paired it with my Dunamis Rods Ascension Swim Jig Rod.  I didn't fish a lot of Swim Jigs during the first tournament, but the second tournament that was the main bait I used all day.  Needless to say the reel got a really good workout during that second tournament and I caught all my fishing using the reel.   The Hyperion is one of the best casting reels I've ever fished and beats the Smokes in casting distance.  However the casting ability and cork handles are the only positives that I found with this reel.  I knew going in that Sixgill Fishing was pretty new in the baitcasting reel market and that this was their first model year basically.  Knowing this I didn't expect the reel to be perfect.  The main problem with this reel is everything feels loose.  The crank shaft and bearings are not well fitted into the frame and cover which give you an annoying clunking sound and feel.   The drag also tends to loosen up by itself which cost me a couple fish as the drag would slip on the hooksets.

I contacted Sixgill to discuss some of the issues with the reel thinking I might be able to give them my views of the problems to assist.  At first they were receptive of my contact and I was even called to discuss some of the issues personally.  Then it all changed.  I was told that I had to work these things out with their customer service.  That would have been fine, I mean I know I'm no Kevin Van Dam.  Still they could have informed me in a more professional manner than they did.  It is little things like that which set some folks apart from other in the fishing industry.  I really wanted to help them out as I thought they might have a good reel that just needed some tweaking.  The fact that the reel casts so well really had me interested, but their manners and the cold means they brushed me off really turned me off.

So the bottom line is the Hyperion from Sixgill Fishing is Not Bounty Hunter approved!!!  The Hyperion is  not worth the $149 list price in my opinion.  It is not even worth the cost even with the 30% discount.  The H20 reels for less than half the cost will preform better overall then the Hyperion.   In fact, the issues the Hyperion has is very similar to those I found in that $20 reel from China and that does make me wonder where Sixgill Fishing is having their reels produced.

Until next time Tight Lines and Take a Kid Fishing!!!

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