Penn Rival Level Wind Conventional Fishing Reel

I’ve caught a lot of 20 and 30 pound catfish on it not sure if it would hold up to much bigger I use it as a backup on my boat but it’s a great little reel

I bought it specifically to use on a hollow sabiki rod to catch live mackerel as bait. It’s a quality reel that won’t break the bank and it pairs well with the sabiki rod and its purpose. Just love the combo. A professional set up.

I own over 30 rods and reels, with many of them Penn. Fished all my life and wouldn't hesitate to recommend Penn products. That said, this is the first time I did have an issue with a Penn reel out of the box. Clicker was stuck in the "On" position. No matter how much force I used button would not move to "Off" position. Simple repair. Removed the three left side plate screws and the side plate. Disassembled the left side plate and inspected the fit of the clicker knob shaft into the hole in the left side plate. No good, way to snug. Removed the clicker knob and using a jewlers file I carefully removed material from the opening in the side plate until the clicker knob moved smoothly, but firmly from the "On" to "Off" positions and back again. Once that was repaired I cleaned the parts, and using Penn grease and oil, lubricated the components requiring lubricant and assembled the reel. Reel functions perfectly, as it should. Minor QC issue for an otherwise fine product.

Just received this reel (15LW) and first opinion was “this could work”. I chose this reel for near shore /off shore fishing in southern California; near shore for bottom fishing and off shore trolling. 40lb. braid should provide adequate capacity and strength for either. I’m getting way ahead of myself in this review. The reel feels sturdy (maybe a little heavy at >1 pound). A rudimentary function check looks good; drag range, spool (axial) tension, gear lever, level wind, clicker, etc. The main issue I find “out of the box” is the handle/crank size. The crank radius is about 3 inches and the crank handle is huge. It just seems to me to be a little over-kill. With nearly the same gear ratio, the Penn JigMaster has about a 2 in. crank radius (if that means anything). OK, next day, at the tackle shop to spool’er up. 40# Spectra (braid) with a +/- 12 yard fluorocarbon “top-shot”. It spooled about 250 yds. of braid – (shrug) OK. Then some sticker shock; my $47 new reel is now a $90+ fishing reel. Oh well, it looks and feels good on its 6 and a half foot rod. I’ll surely have more comments when I get this out on the water and “put the spurs to’er”. So far we’re at 5 stars.

Exelente

Excellent product I bought two of these at the same time. Mostly for fishing in the Eastern Sierra for trout trolling using lead core. I bought these for the reason for my girl to not be able to have to worry about winding in a lead core line when she has a fish on. I have used penn reels for years. They never disappoint excellent product. Excellent price point. Tight lines!

This is a budget, entry level reel. For the low price, its a good deal, but it's not a great reel. I have 4 Shimano Cardiff 400 reels, 2 Shimano Calcutta 400 reels, and 2 PENN Squall II 15LW reels. All of them are nicer and higher quality than the Rival, but they all cost 3x as much. I wanted 2 more 15LW reels to handle heavier tackle trolling for Stripers, to pull big umbrella rigs or 20+ oz tandem mojos to get down deep. These reels will work fine for that, they handle the weight and drag well. My main complaint is how much 'free play' is in the anti-reverse mechanism. When you stop winding, the handle can rotate about 1/2 inch backwards, letting out about an inch of line. While that seems minor, it prevents you from being able to hook a lure into the rod's hook loop and crank the handle to draw the line tight to store the rigged rod. Once you let go of the handle, it flops 1/2'' down and lets out an inch of line, which makes enough slack in the line for your lure's hook to fall out of the holder it was in. This is super annoying. My second complaint is the shaft that the crank handle attaches to has a good amount of slop in it. The crank handle shaft wobbles around by 1-2mm in all directions. Both of my Rival 15LWs have this same amount of slop, so i'd say that they all probably come this way. It'll probably hold up, but it feels cheap and does not inspire confidence. Higher end reels have very solid feeling cranks with zero slop. I ordered 2 of these Rival 15LW reels from Amazon at the same time. While the packaging and reels appear to be identical, the rod clamp hardware was different between the two boxes. Once box had coarse thread rod clamp bolts and fine thread nuts that looked different from the other set, so I couldn't use the mismatched threaded set. I ordered another set of the correct nuts to solve the problem, but quality control should have caught this.

Thank you penn, ADIOS okuma. 2 seasons over with the rival, 2 rivals side by side with 2 warfare's, none of the 4 had any issues in 2 years, were they sticky after 6 months in the closet, YES and anyone whom pulls a reel out and heads to the lake without checking and doing a bit of TLC is an idiot!!! the only reel I have actually had issues with in the last 20 years is an okuma 30 class and it simple "ate itself", have dozes of Penn's one that is approaching 40 years old (I bought as a teenager) and its sill on the boat on a regular basis, its seen salt, fresh and some water that I cannot describe.... I have rebuilt the clutch twice, replaced the clicker once.. still going...(I wont lie I have not been nice to it). take care of your reels no matter what you buy, I have seen $700 shimano's fail at the wrong time and watched a grown man cry when he lost a 200lb yellowfin, we fixed it on the boat a little grease and a few parts and he was back in action the next day...

Great reel as Penn tend to be. Tried it at the weekend doing a bit off the harbour wall and it was excellent.

Atendeu bem à minha necessidade, muito confiável

Me falta probarlo en el mar pero se ve muy bueno

Great product, works well, fast delivery

Using these model many years suitable for casting , trolling,off shore bottom fishing also using live bait surface fishing….