One of the top two anglers to ever make a cast uses the reel we’ll be reviewing today every time he hits the water. Kevin VanDam is arguably the greatest bass angler of all time. People who know nothing about fishing know the name KVD. There may be a few that come in the future that can compare, but no one that’s made a cast to date can hold their career up alongside VanDam’s, with the exception of the amazing iron man of bass angling, Rick Clunn—who is still at it on the Elite Series at 77 years old.
Clunn’s career highlights are comparable to VanDam’s already. KVD will be officially retiring this year while Clunn just completed his 500th tournament with B.A.S.S. The longevity of Clunn’s career may be the deciding factor for the GOAT conversation among generations to come. However, that’s a debate for another day.
KVD’s confidence in this reel is evident and he undoubtedly had a big hand in its design. Those reasons alone were enough to interest me in trying this one out. Here are my thoughts after fishing with the Lew’s KVD LFS Casting Reel over the last 3 months.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
As soon as I pulled this reel out of the box, it looked and felt like something VanDam would have designed and used. KVD is a power-fishing phenom. He loves to throw big baits and fish them fast. He likes to use heavy line and haul big ones in when they bite. Additionally, VanDam has always been a fan of red.
This reel is super pretty, with a dark red color to it. It’s crisp and sturdy, you can feel simply by handling the reel right out of the box, pressing the thumb bar and then re-engaging the reel. You can tell just by the feel of it that it was built to power fish. This initial impression proved true in the coming months.
TESTING THE LEW’S KVD LFS CASTING REEL
I immediately spooled this reel up with 40-pound braided line and strapped a frog onto the end of it. I received this reel at the end of March, just as the bass were moving onto the beds here in central Alabama. I like to keep a frog on throughout the spring to locate spawners and catch post-spawn fish and well into the summer.
Early on, I paired this reel with KVD’s Lew’s IM8 Dock Skipping/Frog Rod. This is a 7’ 2” medium heavy rod with an extra fast tip—a great pairing with the reel for both frogging and light pitching and flipping. The reel handled the frog well, it’s fine tuned well enough to skip a frog into tight spots while still capable of long bomb casts.
I’ve gotten to tie into a few quality fish with this reel over the last few months. The 20-pound drag paired with the beefy handle proved plenty capable of hauling the big ones to the boat. I’m three monthds in and the reel is still rolling strong; I honestly can’t think of anything critical to report from my experience with it so far.
I will say that this reel is better suited for power fishing than finesse in my personal opinion. You could certainly throw a shaky head on 12-pound test with it if you wanted. However, I think that would be a little bit of a disservice to the reel. It performs better with 15-pound to 25-pound fluorocarbon and 40- to 65-pound braid than it does with super light baits and lines.
SPECIFICATIONS
Let’s look at the nuts and bolts that go into this reel: you have a one piece aluminum frame with graphite side plates. The 95mm anodized bowed aluminum handle has Combat Grip paddle knobs. These features attribute to the overall powerful feel of the reel in your hand.
I’m a big fan of the brake adjustment on this reel too. This is one of the things that I think Lew’s does as good as anyone with the majority of their reels. Having an easy to understand, external brake adjuster is huge. Simply dial it up for more tension on the spool, or down for less. I like to set mine to 4 to start with and tweak it from there if need be. I do like my reels a little looser than most, so you may want to start on 5 or 6 and back off from there to prevent an early backlash.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES:
- Drilled, machine forged and anodized aluminum 34mm spool
- Solid brass Speed Gears
- P2 Super Pinion
- Premium 10 bearing system with stainless-steel double shielded bearings and Zero Reverse one-way clutch
- Anodized aluminum spool tension adjustment knob
- Carbon fiber drag system
- Oversized bowed audible click drag star
- Zirconia line guide
- Patented retractable Speed Keeper bait keeper
- External lube port
THE CLICKING DRAG SYSTEM
One neat feature to the KVD LFS reel is the “audible click drag star”. When you adjust the drag on most casting reels, you don’t really have a good indication as to how much you’ve adjusted it. You just kind of have to turn it until it tightens up nicely.
Well, with this reel, there’s a clicking that you can hear as you turn the drag star. This allows the angler to adjust the drag in increments that you can easily measure just by the sound of the drag clicking, both when tightening the drag and when loosening it—the latter comes in particularly handy when fighting a big fish to the boat, you’ll want to back off the drag a little without loosening it too much.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Lew’s KVD LFS Casting Reel comes in both left and right hand options of three gear ratios: 6.2:1, 7.5:1 and 8.3:1. The MSRP for the reel is $149.99, which I think makes it a good deal. Based on what I’ve seen over the last 3 months, this is solid reel that should hold up for a long time.
I’ve been pleased with the KVD LFS reel. I’d say it’s a good all-around reel, with a slight lean towards more power-fishing techniques than light-line applications. True to the Lew’s “LFS” moniker, this reel is light, fast and strong. A solid option if you’re in the market for a quality baitcaster at $150.
