CatMaxx Reel Review

Catmaxx Reel Review – Catmaxx CMX-3 Round Baitcast Reel

I have received a couple of questions by email about the Catmaxx reel over the last few weeks and whether the Catmaxx Reel was a good fishing reel, so I put together a review of the Catmaxx reel.

I used these exclusively for about 2 years. I was first attracted to the Catmaxx because they were one of the few products on the market that were round baitcasters that had large line capacity and also had a thumb bar. They were appealing because they were considerably cheaper than the Abu Garcia’s that I had been using.

I purchased 1 or 2 of these from Bass Pro Shops and started fishing with them using punch bait over soured wheat towards the end  of the summer one year and was really pleased with them overall. They casted well, were smooth and had a good smooth drag. I had been using the Abu Garcia 6500C3, 6600CB and the Rocket. After fishing with the Catmaxx for smaller fish for a few months I decided to get some more and try my hand with them for trophy blue catfish, so I purchased several more.

I think I ultimately ended up with a fleet of 8 or 10 of these and  I fished with them for a long time on my guided fishing trips. I can honestly say that they were good reels and I did not have any issues with them at all for quite some time. I am very hard on fishing tackle and rods and reels so I was very happy with how well they held up.

Utimately I did start having some problems with the Catmaxx reel but they were normal problems that you have with fishing reels when you put them through heavy use (I probably use fishing reels more in one month than most people do in several years). There were random issues with them like bait clickers (line alarms) breaking and the pawls wearing up but overall I was still very pleased with them.

The only complaint that I had about them was when I did have issues with them they didn’t stock parts locally at Bass Pro Shops, and none of the local reel repair places stocked parts either. The reels had to be shipped back to Bass Pro Shop’s reel repair facility or you had to order the Catmaxx reel parts from them. Bass Pro Shop did go above and beyond to take care of me and make sure I was satisfied when I complained about them not having the parts locally. The local manager of the Bass Pro Shop had the parts overnighted to me the first time free of charge so I could get them fixed and get back to fishing.

I ultimately quit using these reels and went back to my Abu Garcia 6500C3 reels because of the lack of availability of parts, as well as a variety of other reasons. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these to a casual angler who is using them for weekend fishing but using them for heavy commercial use may become a problem because of the lack of parts availability.

Bass Pro Shops CatMaxx CMX-3 Round Baitcast Reel

Abu Garcia Ambassadeur C3 Classic Round Baitcast Reels

SOUND OFF: What kind of reels do you use for catfishing? Have you ever used the Catmaxx reel? Tell us about it!

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