Citica VS Caenan

[Tavery5]

I have been thinking all day about the new Shimano Caenan, and after allot of thought, wonder if it is worth the money.

First I know none of us have fished the Caenan, so the comparison can only be done on paper. But there are certain design specs of this reel, that I feel may make it over priced.

First thing I noticed about the design specs of the reel was that it was a graphite frame, I thought to myself, cool a graphite Citica. It was only on closer comparison that I started to see where the Citica far outshines the Caenan, again on paper. The Caenan has 6 bearings, and while that sounds like and upgrade from the 4 the Citica has, lets think about a couple of things. First the Caenan does not have the Super free (SF) pinion support frame mounted bearing that the Citica has. This leads me to believe that it is using a more conventional spool mounted bearing. Without the SF system, I would not think that the Caenan would have the HEG gearing that the Citica has either. So with this said, I would believe the bearing configuration would be this. 2 bearings in the handle, 1 side plate bearing, 1 spool mounted bearing, 1 bearing under the spool tension cap and a anti-reverse bearing. So what you end up with is 2 handle bearings and swap of the SF bearing to a spool bearing.

The Caenan may have the better handle if you prefer EVA knobs over the Citica's Septon grips.

So in the minus category I would say this, graphite frame, no SF system, and no HEG gearing. On the plus side I would say that the handle has bearings, septon vs EVA who knows.

When I thought even more about why Shimano would introduce this reel, I came to my own conclusion that it was a marketing strategy to keep the bottom end price from falling on their lineup. You can easily find the Citica under 100 dollars these days and in my opinion it is the baseline for entry level reels. I will finish by saying this, at a price point of 90 dollars the Caenan is overpriced, there are allot more attractive reels in this price range ,that have better specs. One that comes to mind is the Diawa Exceler at about 70 dollars and there are several Abu Revo Max reels that are less expensive that can easily compete with this reel.

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my opinion, and rant.
I look forward to your comments