Shimano Soare 500S

With the current Japanese trend for hyper-light, 5 to 6ft light game fishing rods weighing in at under 60 grams, I couldn’t help but explore the options for a matching reel and try to answer the question, “what is the lightest spinning reel?” Here’s my findings from the 2018 catalogues:

Rank Make Model Price JPY Price GBP* Weight
1 Shimano Soare 500S 34200 £228 140g
2 Daiwa Exist FC LT1000S 67000 £447 150g
3 Daiwa Theory 1003 30000 £200 155g
4 Abu Garcia Revo MGXtreme 1000S 42500 £283 155g
5 Daiwa Presso Limited 1025 50000 £333 155g
6 Shimano Vanquish 1000PGS 54500 £363 155g
Shimano Stella 1000SSS PG 79800 £532 165g

* based on 150JPY to 1GBP