The folks at Accurate have been busy in their California production facilities, cranking out new American-made reels for hardcore anglers coast-to-coast. As noted in The Fisherman earlier this year, the Accurate Valiant 500 Narrow Plus (500N Plus) available now offers more line capacity for chasing down big game in a narrow spool. Accurate’s Ben Secrest said the new 500N Plus was designed specifically to provide additional 50-pound braid in a narrow reel. “We were fishing the BV-500N and some of the bigger school fish would take us down to the arbor while fishing lighter leaders,” Secrest said of the rationale for improvement, explaining how an additional 150 yards makes a big difference hooking a 60- to 80-pound bluefin.
“Anglers talk about school tuna and that usually means fish between 20 to 50 pounds, but there’s always a few of the bigger models in the batch that you do not expect,” he explained. The single speed BV-500N Plus retails for $552, while the two-speed model comes in at $662. More recently we learned that Accurate will be releasing their next edition Valiant line – the new V2 model – in time for Black Friday in November. In speaking with Accurate’s owner and design guru, David Nilsen, while at the ICAST show in Orlando, the Accurate team is excited about the very first revision to the Valiant line in 8 years.
“We put the strike button on there now which the earlier Valiant didn’t have,” Nilsen said, describing the new V2 design has been optimized for cast control. “It’s got counter weights, and it’s centrifugal force, so when you cast out the weights go out and it actually slows the spool down a little bit, just enough to slow down the line coming out, but it will peel it out very well,” Nilsen said.
“On round reels like this it hasn’t been something that any manufacturer’s ever really done, so this is like original baitcasting technology that we’ve used for saltwater fishing,” added Secrest, saying the castability aspect of this new V2 came over from the Tern series (TXD). “This is the first lever drag that’s had it,” Secrest said, explaining the benefit having your lure hit the water at full strike, in gear, when it’s often essential for instant hookups during a surface bite.
Expect to see all the same sizes in the original Valiant (300 to 1000) in the new smooth-casting V2 series in shops come November.
