Craig Cantelmo drove his fishing mobile to the shop to tell us all about the new VSX2 and what makes it one of the best reels around. 

Transcript:

 hey guys Craig cantelmo with Van Staal really excited today to introduce you to the new X2 series of reels what we did is we created a new line of reels based on the same foundation of the legendary x-series reels so machined waterproof sealed and what we use were the same materials so 6061 T6 aluminum hardened stainless steel gears titanium shaft the patented waterproof sealed drag but we made some improvement so what we did is we went to the unibody design the old x-series reel had three screws that held the foot to the body on the X2 we now have a unibody design so that eliminates a leak path and it also creates an incredibly rigid platform so all your energy that you put to the handle is turning that rotor put in line on the spool so it also makes for a lighter design as well what we also did is we moved the anti-reverse from the handle side to the pinion so you have an incredibly positive rotor there's no slopping it it's direct and you'll feel that on your first hook set okay that also eliminates the problem of assembling The Reel you can't lock it up anymore you can take the side cover off put the side cover on without fear of locking the Reel up but what you'll see is it's also got the skirted spool design okay so it's a semi-skirt it's still going to protect the spool when you get up on a rock and you um put any kind of pressure on it but it makes it a much stronger design because that and it reverse is on the pinion side okay we lengthen the handle on all the reels for added cranking power you have the power grip handle knob and power grip drag knob that comes with the reel one of the other features of this reel too is that the foot has gotten longer on every model so you no longer have interference where guys would move uh feet on the 150 and the 200 and 250 it's going to come that way and you're going to see it's incredibly comfortable to fish with so to introduce you to the vs X2 series we have the 100 150 we have a 151 left feet and we have the 200 and the 201 Lefty so now instead of having that Lefty in the 250 due to popular demand is out in the 200 we have the 250 and the 300. okay so the gear ratios we wanted to make sure since we own that segment of the market in the surf the 150 200 and 250 rely on the same gear ratio so what you had in the x-series reels what we did that's really unique and we wanted to do this is increase the speed on the vs100x2 it goes from 27 inches per turn to now 33 and a half inches per turn so it's a incredibly versatile little reel at 12 and a half ounces you're now capable of putting this on if you're fishing top water on a seven and a half foot Rod all the way to a 10 foot where it's going to be fast enough to overcome that distance from the real seat to the tip the sand beach guys are going to love this combination this is going to be a fun little reel to fish with now on the opposite side we have the 300. don't be scared wait till you pick this reel up it's not heavy it balances an 11 foot Rod but more importantly it's 50 inches per turn so now from Cabo to the canal whether you're chasing Roosters on the beach in Mexico or you're fishing a canal on a moon tide this reel is going to be the one you want to go for an even large pelagics it's got the capacity it's the same as what the 275 spool was um so you have more than enough capacity and now you have the speed it's going to revolutionize What's Done in the surf and I know the tarpon guys in development down in Florida this was their favorite reel so you got to pick it up turn the handle and feel that and put it on your 11 foot rod and guys due to popular demand we came out with the Lefty reels we're the only ones that ever created a true Lefty reel so this is completely sealed waterproof just like all the others but the handles on the right side so we don't have a reel that you could just switch the handle so and by Design it's you're gonna have the same benefits of all the other reels in the Lefty model and it's true Lefty so it turns the opposite way so if you wanted to use the manual pickup you can do that where on other reels it would spin the opposite way this reel in the 151 and the 201 is going to be a welcome uh reel to where you left these out there all right the vsb X2 series reels so vsb means van stall valve we have three models it's the vsb 50 which is just one of the most fun reels to fish it's going to take over the inshore Market at 1200 to about 12 ounces and you have 35 inches per turn but the foundation is the same completely sealed waterproof hardened stainless steel gears titanium shaft uh titanium Bale wire patented waterproof sealed drag this reel is a maintenance-free Beast that you can have in the gun only your boat that's always going to be ready to go tog fishing uh it's going to be one of the go-to's for that because it's so rigid and you don't have any interference on that Bell wire but you can also put this on you know up to a nine foot rod and hit the surf with it so a very positive Bale wire design that we improved from the uh vsb X Series uh the X2 is a bulletproof little reel that you're gonna love to fish with so we have the vsb50 and then we have the vsb 150. so that is back due to popular demand and this is a a reel that will cover everything from uh medium heavy seven foot Rod all the way up to a 10 foot surf rod we also have the vsb 200 um that'll be used more for pelagics um that I don't have here but you'll see it shortly guys the X2 series reels was in development for a long time we created that platform which was that unibody and we knew that was an important move to improve the X Series so we um created the body we put a titanium insert on the rail that most guys will never see or feel but know it's there because it's going to make for a smoother more durable product for you for the lifetime of your reel but in development we went through and said how do you take the x-series reel and make it better because it's arguably the foundation of surf fishing right but there were things that we wanted to improve so we made improvements and we have some of the best surf fishermen in the world fishing the product and we get feedback back and forth and tweaked the product get it back out to them and what's created in the X2 is the perfect balance of rigidity weight size to go in and balance all the new rods on the marketplace and allow you to be in every fishing situation whether you're casting at cudas on a flat on a windy day down in the Bahamas or you're cast in top water at roosters uh in Cabo we wanted to make sure that we had every one of those bases covered but more importantly our core has not deviated we're a surf striped bass uh reel between that 150 and 250 model and we kept those gear ratios the same so the only thing that changed really was that Foundation of what that body is to add rigidity durability and lightness to it with the new improvements of the vs X2 you're going to see that all the reels got a little longer okay because we moved that clutch from the handle side to the pinion side which is not a bad thing what we've done if you look at this in comparison to the vs x-series 150 it's a slightly larger reel the handle length is dramatic so you have a much more capable reel that you're going to be able to put on a 10 foot surf rod where it was very difficult to do that with the vsx series rails just because of its design and you could see that the foot has gotten longer so you don't have to worry about interference but where uh this wheel was designed for a seven foot up to a nine foot Rod this is going to be a much more versatile reel that'll cover the bases because of that design with the longer hand alarm longer foot and moving that uh clutch to the pinion side the X2 Series has a unibody and the unibody was an improvement that doesn't have the screws that hold the foot to the body like the x-series rail so you get rid of a weak pad and you make an incredibly rigid platform on the x-series reels all of them from the 100 through the 300 models you have a longer stem on the foot okay to eliminate any kind of interference now we tried to hit that perfect length where you could still access the line roller but if you're wearing gloves or you have bigger hands you don't have to worry about any interference on all the X2 reels we lengthen the handle arms so that a really important uh Factor when you're pulling on big fish right the longer the arm the greater the cranking power um and we also included the power grip handle knob and power grip drag knob on every model another feature of the X2 series reel is that it now has a semi-skirted spool and that's because we moved the clutch from the handle side to the pinion side what that means to you is that it's more positive hook sets there's no play in the rotor it's now an incredibly rigid platform that you're going to feel on that first hook set so on the X2 what we did with the 100 with increasing the gear ratio it makes it a much more capable reel at 33 and a half inches per turn but with the larger foot that lengthens it off the rod it has tremendous application for sand beach fishing putting it on a 10-foot Rod this is going to become one of your favorites for fishing the sand beach because it's very capable with a longer handle but you'll see that all the reels on the X2 became slightly larger than the X Series reel because of moving that clutch but what it also does is it makes the Reel more functional there's going to be cases where you're a tweener right when you fish into 150 or the 200 to balance that rod and in most cases as soon as you went to a 10 you had to go to a 200. this is going to allow you to fix the 150 on many 10-foot rods so this will cover everything from a seven and a half to a ten and remember on the 150 200 and 250 though we made the foot longer added the length in the handle we did not change the gear ratio because we own the surface this year we brought back the 300 because it's our 30th anniversary and to celebrate that the vs 300 is back but remember it's not the old 300 this has the unibody and it's incredibly fast we now have a reel that gives you 50 inches per turn so this is going to be that go-to reel from the canal um to Rooster fish to Tunis with 480 yards of 80 pound bread this is going to be a go-to really excited about the X2 series reels coming out that you'll see in the fall of 2022 and you could get them at the salt water edge