Great quality as usual with hardy. I fish everyday and this reel has never let me down. The classic hardy click check sound, it’s beautiful, light weight but strong, adjustable drag If need ever be, great feel in hand, and very good value for the money. I definitely recommend this reel.

Really disappointing for if gear from hardy.The gap between the spool and reel is so large that light fly lines can slip between and get tangled around the inner spindle.This happened to me while sight fishing,As I spotted my first mountain stream trout for the day,I prepared my cast only to find the fly line was twisted and tangled around the inner of the reel.Because the spool isn’t detachable, the only way to fix it is to cut off the fly, de thread the rod and start again.I decided to off with the reel and use a more trust worthy system immediately when I was forced to rebuild my setup.For a heritage brand like hardy, this is a Terrible product.If you’re after an entry-mid range reel, use a Lamson or reddington.

Great product, fast shipping! Paired the Hardy Ultraclick with my Douglas Upstream Plus 4wt. Super lightweight and solid construction!

The Good: Beautiful reel with excellent machining and colors. As light as they come. Paired it with my T&T Contact II 10' 9" 3wt and was able to put on backing, a SA Trout floating line (for the rare case when I want to switch over to dries for rising trout), and a mono rig...just barely fit on the size 2/3 reel. I approached this setup for ultralight instead of balancing my long rod.The Bad: Though it feels wonderful to carry because it is so light and I'm all about ultralight, I DO recommend getting a reel to balance your ESN rod, specifically in longer lengths such as my 10ft 9in. I was getting wrist/forearm fatigue even in shorter hour sessions and worse in 3-4hr sessions. I figured it was the trade-off for a lightweight setup and the simplicity the reel offered. You do need to watch if you have a fish on the clicker "drag" as it doesn't keep any real tension on the fish (I only fish/tie barbless). Also the line can jump and create additional slack, so palming the reel is a must in my experience. So I was able to look past all of this until one outing I took my reel out of its neoprene case as usual, and unwrapped my fly rod and attached the reel to the seat. I started threading my line through the guides and noticed it wasn't clicking. The green colored triangular clicker piece that stays on the frame was missing. I had it stuck in the un-clicked motion before...but this was completely missing. Upon inspection I saw no burs or damage to the screwed down frame and post in which it sits in. The spring and all were still in-tact. I "limped" through the day and still caught 18 trout in the pouring rain and another 12 a couple days later with a free-running spool. So I called Hardy's customer service once the weekday/business day came. After several calls and requested call-backs, I finally waited on hold for the 30min+ and spoke to someone. They wanted me to ship it back, I pay shipping. I moaned and explained how extremely careful I am with my gear...that this reel hasn't even touched a rock or anything hard outside of some grass when I would thread my rod and that I only purchase premium gear am quite surprised by this failure within less than a month. I asked if they could just send me the pawl piece so I wasn't without my reel during trout season which would be ending soon. They put me on hold a second time to talk to whomever and came back saying that I need to send it in, that they need to repair it there. Mind you this is a simple mechanism...the beauty of a click-pawl reel. There's two phillips screws I could back out and drop in a new pawl part. On hold again.... came back and said I couldn't do that but they could submit to management for a return label... A week later no return label. Long story short, I returned this reel since it was within 30 days as defective. Very disappointed and doubt I'll ever give Hardy a try again. The reel is made overseas btw, which surprised me from a premium manufacturer. Though the Sage ESN reel is made in Korea, so....I replaced the reel with a Galvan euro nymph 3.5 reel, Made in USA. The reel will balance out my rod and will see the contrast/difference between ultralight reel vs a heavier reel that balances the rod within Thomas & Thomas recommended range. I respooled already and checked with my line on the reel and through the guides...important to judge it by how you'll actually fish it...line through the guides and all (mono rig in my case). Ultimately I'd only buy a clicker-pawl again if I was setting up an ultralight dry fly rod and I'd go with the Ross Colorado as I have other Ross reels and are some of the very best IMO.

Designed for euro-nymphing, but I wanted a simple, lightweight option on my 7'6" 3wt. I love the click sound of this reel as compared to other click and pawl reels.