KastKing MegaJaws Elite Baitcasting Fishing Reel, New AutoMag Dual Braking System, Only 6.7oz, 17.64 LBs Carbon Fiber Drag, 11+1 Shielded BB, High Speed 5.4:1 to 9.1:1 Gear Ratios

I gave this reel a workout for a couple days before writing this review. I am also a Shimano Curado angler so that is my main reels to compare with this Kast King Mega Jawa Elite reel. For those who want a quick statement about it. Its very comparible to the shimano curado K line of reels at a lower price point. I dont notice any lack of quality to get the lower price. It is a more attractive reel than the Curado series. I love all the gold trim especially the milled handle with Gold on the chamfer. As far as performance it has 10 settings for braking. unlike the Shimano Curado where you have to remove the cover to adjust the brake by flipping one of four levers, the Mega Jaws Elite has a dial recessed on the side. The optimal setting for me was between 3-4. I am an experienced baitcast angler but would not describe myself as advanced or expert. That group can probably set it lower. I got great casting distance at that setting and no backlashes with just a slight amount of thumb pressure at the end of cast. You can dial it in to cast with no thumb pressure but you will sacrifice some distance. That makes this a great reel for both beginners and advanced anglers. This reel is also about an ounce lighter than the shimano curado. The reel is smooth but I would give the edge to Shimano on that one. This might be due to the guide on the megajaws is longer than the shimanos which you can feel a little more friction as the braid moves through. probably would not notice with Mono or flouro. I did spool it with 50lb braid and did some pitching and flipping with a Jig. This reel has a flip switch where the thumb bar disengages as soon as you release pressure on it instead of cranking the reel handle. It takes getting used to as it changes how I have been programmed for flipping baits. I am not a fan of it but with some practice I am sure it works great. Like most bait casters the spool tensioner needs to be adjusted depending on the weight of the bait to avoid backlashing. Overall this is an excellent reel at its price point and to me it was simple to adjust and use.

Better than butter smooth! Intelligently and well built.

First, I am reviewing the updated version of Kastking's MegaJaws baitcasting reel with the AutoMag Dual Braking system. It is also the "Red" model with the 9.1:1 retrieve ration and right side handle. Admittedly, I had some concerns when unboxing this reel. It wasn't seated in the box as designed. However, upon inspection, there didn't appear to be anything amiss. The fit and finish are excellent. The documentation enclosed leaves much to be desired. While a very good schematic of the reel is included, the instruction manual appears to be a KastKing generic document applicable to most of their baitcasting reels. However, there is nothing about the AutoMag Dual Braking System in it. Fortunately, it is a relatively simple system to set. A 100 yds of an eight strand, 30 lb. braid (.011"/0,28 mm) filled the spool. The drag is smooth and substantial, but I suspect that the carbon fiber drag discs will benefit from greasing. I will be doing that shortly. I mounted the reel on a 6'6" medium rod and did some test casting in the yard. Once the reel's braking system was properly set, birds' nests were not an issue. That said, with a lighter practice plug (1/4 oz), casting distances were limited. I imagine fiddling with the tension knob and braking system might improve its performance here, but such were my initial efforts. When I moved up to a 1/2 oz. plug, casting distances improved dramatically, and there were no backlashes. My "educated thumb" was not required to prevent overruns. As I noted, these are initial impressions. At its current pricing, I think it is an excellent value. After I have taken it on the water a few times, I will amend this review if necessary. I cannot yet comment on its durability, but, for now, I like this reel a great deal. Edit #1. On the water, one huge plus for this reel is the ease with which you can set the brakes. There's no guess work about the relationship between the centrifugal brakes and the magnetic ones. The AutoMag system takes care of that for you. Set the spool tension and then adjust the brakes as needed. This should be especially appealing to those new to baitcasting reels or those who have struggled with them in the past. That said, the ease of operation comes at a cost. Casting distances, at least for me, were a tad more limited than with conventional reels and the KastKing MegaJaws baitcasting reel handled heavier (1/2+ oz) lures better than lighter ones. Regardless of this, casting distances were still more than adequate, and I was able to place my lures where I wanted them.

This reels is an excellent purchase. I am a huge fan of kast king anyway. I have 4 kast king bait cast reels and kast king spinning reels and use em all on an almost daily basis. About this reel tho, it not only looks great but once I tuned it in, it casts incredibly and was easy enough to tune in. I am very satisfied with this reel and will probly purchase another. Oh, also all my rods are also kast king. Kast king keep up the good work and quality while I save money buying your products which are just as good as the big name brand fishing gear.

Just wow! I bought this reel because I really liked the theory behind the AMB braking System and living in South Florida you can throw every kind of bait in any size. As such, I wanted to see how well this thing would do casting a puny 6” worm with a 1/16 oz weight, or a 10” with a ¼ oz weight, a ⅛ oz swim jig, or a ½ oz football juggling with a trailer, some top water jerk baits, to suspending one’s in both the 9 & 11 sizes, my tried and proven strike king square bills and deep divers, and swim baits. This MegaJaws Elite handled them all WITH EASE!!! All I did was set my external brake to 0 (zero), tighten the spool tension nob, open the spool and turned out the tension nob until my lure hit the floor and gave me a 1 extra rotation and then I turned the external brake up to 5 and casted it out. It handled every single lure almost identical and never once was it out of control. I over spooled maybe 2-3 extra turns a couple of times in the smaller lures, but I purposely didn’t apply any thumb after seeing a few review vids on YouTube. I saw they didn’t know how to properly adjust a baitcaster and did it the way The Reel Test does it, which is completely incorrect. I casted most of the lures on my B-Lat sick stick which is a superb 7’2” MH casting Rod and every single bait would zip way out across the lake with the lighter ones casting around 30 yards (semi into the wind) on my 40lb 8-strand braid, and the larger lures flew an impressive distance around 45-50 yards on average. The most impressive was casting a football jig on my 7’9” Heavy Ark jigging rod (I call it my broomstick). Initially I was leaving about 18” of line on my casts but one time I accidentally lifted my thumb momentarily and let out a bit more line on my back swing and it flew considerably farther, so I reeled it in and let out about 3” of line and lightly swung my jig back and whipped it forward and it took off!!! I’d guesstimated it was about 55 yards on average, maybe a bit more! The flipping switch is awesome too! I have a Quantum PT Accurist S3 that has that feature and I absolutely love it for flipping into heavy stuff. This reel’s flipping feature is no different. I did cause a bit of an over spool once trying to flip and almost skipping my jig at a fish I saw in front of me, but totally my fault because I was so excited I released pressure on the spool prematurely. I cleared the spool and pitched it again and from then on it was pure money! I must have casted about 200 times today and not once did this reel miss! And it did it all while being completely quiet and no rattling or vibration no matter how hard I cast. Suuuuper smooooth, compact and light and palms really well. I have large hands and it was comfy all day long. I am completely impressed! I bought the Dark Galaxy model (looks a bit green in direct sunlight like some Shimano reels!) because of its deep spool because I do a lot of bank fishing and I need to fling it and I can’t be spooling myself out. I’m now thinking about getting the new purple one for tossing jigs and larger weighted senkos and creature baits through all the hydrilla in the lakes down here, but IDK because I really like deep spools. I highly recommend this reel for novice, more advanced and pro level anglers alike. I am really impressed with this thing! I’ll try to post some pictures of it in sunlight to show the cool greenish hue it casts. (No pun intended lol)

I heard about this on YouTube a few days ago. I bought one of the 7.2:1 models, and it arrived two days ago. My background: I fished with spinning reels for 60 years. A few years ago I bought a couple of baitcasters. I'm not good at all casting with conventional baitcasters - for me a good sidearm cast was maybe 60 feet. Preventing backlashes always cost me distance. In the promotional information this reel is presented as "no backlash", and that's what got me to buy one. I rigged it on a 7' Kalex XPS medium heavy rod, with about 100 yards of 30 lb PowerPro braid, using no backing. (On the reel it says that it holds 110 yards of 12lb test line, but doesn't specify the line type or diameter.) I tied on an 11 gram (.38 oz) hookless plug, adjusted spool tension, and took it out to the backyard in cold Central Massachusetts. The reel is very light, and palms very comfortably. Everything works smoothly, and the drag feels very smooth and adjustable. The flipping switch is easily turned on/off and is easily accessible for quick adjustment. I like how the spool tension knob clicks when adjusted. I started casting (sidearm) and had fairly amazing results immediately. Without thumbing the spool at all, except to stop it at "splashdown", I had no backlashes - zero. This was even with magnetic braking set to "0". The casting plug weight was at the low end of what's recommended for this particular rod, which is 3/8-1oz. Nonetheless, I easily cast over 100', almost twice the distance I can manage with my conventional baitcasters. The cold weather finally drove me inside after a few dozen casts. The only thing I don't like about the reel, has nothing to do with the reel itself - it's what comes with it. The documentation is for a generic KastKing baitcaster, and really doesn't apply to this one. It has zero information specific to this model. It might be useful to include some AMD casting tips. Tips on setting the magnetic brake would be helpful. For example, if braking is "automatic", how is the magnetic brake supposed to be used? Is it just to allow for casting into the wind, or something? It would also be nice to see a chart of line weights & capacities, too. Final thoughts: I'm really glad I bought this. The reel works great, even better than expected. Having no backlashes was terrific, but the big increase in casting distance was totally unexpected. I cast nearly twice as far as with my conventional baitcasters, first time out. I'm an old Yankee cheapskate, but I think pricing is fair. The flipping switch will be useful for many people, and I'll check that out later when I'm on the water in my kayak. Update after fishing it for two months:. The automatic backlash control works fine for lures that have very little wind resistance. It does not work effectively with lures with a lot of wind resistance, such as spinnerbaits. That's a big disappointment

I bought two of these and use them as my main reels. I have one on a 7’ MHF spooled with 30lb braid to 12 flouro leader and another on a 7’3” H spooled with straight 17lb flouro. The 7’ is my do everything grab and go rod and through probably 1000s of casts on it now it still runs great. I put a few drops of oil in there from time to time and keep it wiped down and it just keeps going. If it ever breaks I’ll update my review. The 7’3” I use for frogs and bigger glide baits and stuff and this reel works ok for it but it’s probably not the best for the heavier lures. While they don’t seem to be as sturdy as my expensive Lews and stuff they are certainly very good for what they cost. I use the LH versions as I find casting with one hand then transferring it to the other is just silly.

There are more expensive baitcasters out there, but I feel like past this it's rapidly diminishing returns. If you go below this price point, you get poor quality reels that just don't perform and feel cheap. I've tried a lot of baitcasters, and IMHO this Kastking MegaJaws Elite is the perfect balance point, the absolute best bang for the buck. This baitcaster is made of high-quality, saltwater resistant aluminum. It feels very high quality. The gears and retrieve is smooth and feels polished. It's about as backlash resistant as you can expect. You can still backlash it, but under normal use with an experienced user, backlashes are rare. I spool mine with 30 lb braid with a 20 lb mono leader to fish for pink salmon and coho salmon. The reel performed great in this capacity. I have three of these reels, that's how much I like it. It's the only reel I use for salmon fishing in southeast Alaska.