Shimano Vanford C3000HG and Shimano Vanford 4000XG spinning reels review - around £185 to £200 in the UK

I have fished with these two spinning reels for long enough to know what I think of them - new Shimano reels around the £200 mark, have a good guess what they are like! - but not long enough to know how well they are going to stand up to the sort of saltwater fishing I so love doing. If I can manage to keep hold of these two new Shimano Vanford reels then I will report back later on in the year with how they are holding up, but from the point of view of a few months of use with the two reels I can at least tell you what I think of them in the hope that it might prove helpful to a few of you here. I also wrote a bit of an initial impressions blog post about the Shimano Vanford C3000HG a while back, check here.

So I have fished a lot now with the newest generation of the famous Shimano Stradic spinning reels, the Shimano Stradic 2500HG-FL, and I wrote a blog post about this reel after one year of use - check here. I haven’t seen or fished with any more of the newest Stradic FL range, but my understanding is that this brand new Vanford range of spinning reels from Shimano which they are making a lot of noise about is the replacement for the previous generation Stradic CI4+ FB which I think were a smidgen of a step up over the previous generation Stradic FK. Confused? Unless Shimano go and release another range of reels then I think we are now talking about the Stradic FL range and the Vanford range of spinning reels in their £150-£200 category. I have used the Stradic FL quite enough to still wonder quite how a fishing tackle company like Shimano can go cramming in so much loveliness for the price, so for a bit more money what on earth have we got with these new Vanford spinning reels?

I bet you can guess almost exactly what I am about to say here. I haven’t fished with a Shimano Stella for many years now, and I have only had a few casts with one of their current and not cheap Vanquish spinning reels. I have owned a little Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG for a few years now and it is still as good as it was on day one (I did get it properly serviced a few months ago, didn’t feel like it needed it, but I thought the reel deserved it, happy to see this particular Twin Power XD range is still in the Shimano 2021 catalogue). In a roundabout way what I mean to say here is that my point of reference for these new Vanford reels is a Stradic FL, a Twin Power XD, and an Exsence 4000MXG which is as serious as you would imagine but for some reason I can’t put my finger on I don’t truly love it.

As you can see above there are a whole bunch of different reel sizes and retrieve ratios in the Vanford range of reels that Shimano in their wisdom are making available to the European market, and I happen to have been fishing with the C3000HG and 4000XG versions. If you know anything about relatively current Shimano spinning reels then you don’t really need to read this review/ramble - because around the £200 mark is buying you spinning reels which are so bloody lovely to lure fish with that I have to wonder what on earth the extra money for the Stellas and the Vanquish reels gets you. The Exsence 4000MXG is a proper bit of kit which is all black and moody, but does it feel any better than the Vanford 4000XG when I am out fishing? Nope, indeed if anything the Vanford feels a bit more “together” but of course it’s earlier days with the Vanford and the Exsence has had a good amount of use now. I accept that the more expensive reels most likely have some better quality components sprinkled about their bodies and internals, but from the point of view of taking a spinning reel out lure fishing for bass I can’t really see how the actual experience can get any nicer than doing so with these Vanfords. Time will tell how particular reels hold up to a saltwater based life, but my feeling so far is that we’re talking about some serious gear here.

These Vanfords are almost ridiculously light - the C3000HG weighs 191g loaded with braid and the 4000XG weighs 232g loaded with braid - and turning their handles when you are retrieving lures is as lovely as you can imagine. Straight out of the boxes the line lays were perfect, I have had zero line management issues on both reels with braid levels as you can see in the photos sprinkled around this review/ramble (the ridiculously good Sufix 131 in 0.165mm is on both the reels because I can’t get enough of this braid), I am perfectly happy with the retrieve speeds albeit if you want slower reels then they exist within the extensive Vanford range, as nice as these slightly longer profile “long stroke spools” look I can’t tell you that I am noticing any casting distance improvements over reels without this feature, and in reality everything about the two Vanfords I have been fishing with feels great. To make this a “proper” review I am trying to think of something I don’t like about these reels, but to be honest I can’t. Time is going to be the key and as I said I will report back, but if I was going to drop around the £200 mark on a spinning reel which I wasn’t expecting to drown on a regular basis - the heavier Slammer III still reigns supreme for me on the drowning front - then I can’t really see how we could go wrong with one of these Vanford reels. To be honest though I could say the same about the slightly cheaper Stradic FL range.

Nope, the only “problems” I can find so far is that from a rod and reel in hand when actually fishing point of view, I think perhaps there comes a point when a spinning reel can possibly be a bit too light for some rods. I have been fishing with a particularly lovely, regular casting weight 9’6’’ lure rod for example, and initially I strapped the little 191g Vanford C3000HG to it, but as a combination it didn’t feel quite right in my hands. It fished just fine of course, and over more time it felt more natural, but the (very) slightly heavier and larger profile 232g Vanford 4000XG just feels like a perfect match for this awesome lure rod. Interestingly my beloved little and “heavier” 250g Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG feels really good on this 9’6’’ rod, but then so does a somewhat heavier 403g Penn Slammer III 3500 once I have given it a few minutes to get used to the extra weight. As much as I love my Slammer with a passion though, it’s never going to be as smooth as these Shimano reels and I don’t think it’s actually meant to be either. Does that actually matter when you’re out fishing though? You know my answer - real world versus turning reel handles fresh out of boxes when sitting at home!

Then I put that little Vanford C3000HG on a 9’2’’ lure rod I have here which is freaking me out how much I like it, and to me it’s the perfect match. Saying that though the “heavier” Vanford 4000XG is still so bloody light that in truth you can easily fish this 4000 size Shimano reel on shorter and lighter rods if you prefer a bit of a larger profile to your spinning reel. It may just be me here, but I do think that matching spinning reels to lure rods these days needs a bit more thinking about the whole weight or indeed lack of weight thing. Saying that though if you spend proper fishing time with an outfit it’s interesting how something which initially might feel a touch off soon feels so normal. I have got so used to that 9’2’’ rod/Vanford C3000HG combination for example that it feels strange when I take the reel off and strap the somewhat heavier Slammer III 3500 to the rod - but ten minutes of fishing like this and I am now telling myself that the heavier reel on such a light and responsive rod is in fact the way to go because it’s feeling so damn good. I then take the Slammer off and put either of the Vanfords on and ten more minutes later I have changed my mind again!

So I have just read this spinning reel review back and you will have to accept my apologies because it’s not really a very meaningful review. It’s getting harder and harder to write “reviews” of spinning reels like these new Vanfords because they are so nice to fish with. The real crux then has to be how long said items may or may not last with how so many of us ply our fishing trade, but even then you’ve got me who uses spinning reels a lot but also does all he can to look after them - regular washing down, oiling, greasing etc. - and some anglers who also use spinning reels a lot but don’t look after them at all. If my little Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG fell to pieces tomorrow I’d feel perfectly comfortable with the amount of real fishing time I have had with it versus how much it costs, and although it’s only been a year and a half with this Shimano Stradic 2500HG-FL and I obviously hope that this reel keeps on going and going, again I think for the money it’s done what I could realistically hope for in a saltwater environment. My reassuringly robust feeling Slammer III 3500 owes me absolutely nothing on the fishing time versus price thing, and again I hope it keeps going on and on. I know that a tackle company like Shimano is forever changing and refreshing their ranges of reels, but I wonder if in a few years time we will be talking about the Vanford as a classic spinning reel? Who knows, but as it stands these are a couple of stunners to lure fish with and I will report back in due course…………………

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