Okuma Tesoro : The Review

Hello fish-catching society

I bought my first Tesoro summer 2023 and began fishing it immediately, which might make this review appear a bit late but in reality it isn't; the Tesoro is not a new generation of an existing series or a spin-off of a known model, nor is it even a new reel built on an established platform that I have prior familiarity with. Rather it's a completely new reel drawn up from scratch, therefore it required lengthy testing covering a wide array of potential uses and techniques in various fishing environments, within the scope of its purpose of course. If something on this new reel was prone to breakage, corrosion, or failure, I wanted it to break, corrode, or fail during my fishing so I could come and tell you. I am now satisfied that I have made a proper evaluation of the Tesoro, and I'm here to share it with you.

"Tesoro" means "treasure" in both Spanish and Italian languages, a pleasant name that's a welcome break from Okuma's recent descent into retaliatory violence, manifested not only in the "Avenger" reels but also in the even angrier "Revenger" series. Hopefully the good folks at the headquarters in Taiwan will calm down before we see them naming future models "Retributor", "Retaliator", "Vindicator", or something similarly murderous.

Speaking of which, Okuma is technically no longer a purely Taiwanese brand in my opinion, since they recently concluded a partial sale of the company to the Finnish "Rapala VMC" group, a conglomerate that's been on the rise with rapid acquisitions of brands such as Suffix and 13 Fishing, in addition to the two foundational brands Rapala and VMC. This sale gives ownership and full control of the "Okuma" trademark in Europe and Russia to Rapala VMC group, but everywhere else the trademark remains a property of the Taiwanese company.

Now on Okuma's site where they list their international presence, Rapala VMC takes over Europe & Russia regions.

It is important to understand the difference between what happened here and the standard alliances or regional distribution agreements that companies often sign. In this case Okuma permanently relinquished possession and control of the "Okuma" trademark in these regions, and it has become the property of its new owner Rapala VMC. That Finnish group can now freely put the "Okuma" name on any product they make themselves or have made for them by anyone as long as they sell it within Europe and Russia, while the Taiwanese Okuma company can no longer sell in these regions unless permitted by the new regional owner of the trademark.

One imagines that, at least for now, Rapala VMC will put the Okuma brand on tackle made by the Taiwanese Okuma in an inevitable strategic partnership, but it's completely up to them and they can at any time contract Chinese OEMs to create reels bearing the Okuma branding then sell them in Europe and Russia. They own the trademark. All of this is based on my understanding of the legal definition and precedence of such trademark acquisitions, not anything stated by either Taiwanese Okuma or Rapala VMC. If I come across any special stipulations or details that make this sale agreement different to the norm I will of course tell you, but that seems unlikely.

I've always classified Okuma as one of the "big three" since, similar to Shimano and Daiwa, it's a sizeable independent entity that designs and manufactures the vast majority of its reels in its own factories, and they have such a large output capacity they also operate as an OEM often manufacturing reels for the trade to be sold under other brands. Following this sale I still consider it one of the big three, but going forward I'll refer to the parent entity as "Okuma Rapala VMC group", while the brand of the reels remains "Okuma". It's now closer to a conglomerate than an independent company. Interestingly, this transaction links Okuma to one of the two other tackle conglomerates, since the private equity firm Sycamore Partners who owns Pure Fishing (Penn, Van Staal, Abu, etc.) used to own almost 20% of the Rapala VMC group, and only recently reduced its ownership in it to about 10%. This is, of course, the situation at the time of writing in summer 2025, but if you're reading this in the future things could've changed significantly. At any rate, I wish them the best of luck because they've always been a decent group of people who created great tackle, and in terms of innovation they are only second to Daiwa in my book.

The Tesoro is a series of saltwater reels that comes in four size classes; the full-size comprising 18000/20000 reels, the mid-size 8000/10000/14000, the small class 5000/6000, and finally the tiny class solely represented by the 4000. Sizes 5000 and up are fully constructed of metal with aluminium frames, side covers, and rotors, while the 4000 has an aluminum frame and side cover paired with a carbon-infused plastic rotor which Okuma calls "C40X", apparently their version of Daiwa's Zaion and Shimano's CI4. All sizes of the Tesoro are advertised as fully sealed. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to spend enough time with the tiny 4000 since Okuma announced it in mid 2024 and it became available several months later. The main reason this review took 2 years was my quest to fish this completely new platform exhaustively, and incorporating this tiny late arrival into it would've meant postponing the review a few extra months, which isn't ideal especially at a time when I'm essentially dedicating all my energy and resources to the 2025 Saltiga and Stella SW. I did manage to source a 14000 PA to fish intermetently alongside my 20000 PA featured in this article, and I also spent some quality time shoreside with a 6000 XA in January and February 2024. Both the 14000 and the 6000 were not retail purchased production reels, therefore I've used them just for general guidance on their respective size classes. All measurable facts and verdicts about build and performance are based on my retail purchased production 20000 PA.

The Tesoro comes in a large number of size/speed combinations, and not all of those combinations are available in all regions. That's similar to what Shimano and Daiwa sometimes do when they offer certain combinations to specific markets but not the others, based on what they perceive as the local demand. I aggregated all the size/speed combinations of all Tesoros that exist at the time of writing in this graph, and you figure out which ones are sold in your region. In case you were unfamiliar with the initials, PA stands for "Power" since these are the lowest gear ratios, HA is "High" being fast gear ratios, and XA is "Extreme" which are even faster ratios than the HA. 

In the mid-size class, the 8000, 10000, and 14000 have the same frame size, but the 8000 has a smaller rotor to save weight and keep it proportionally compact. The small 8000 spool does not need an unnecessarily wide rotor made to accommodate the bigger 14000 spool. Therefore, the spools are not interchangeable between the 8000 on one side, and the 10000/14000 on the other side. I made this simple chart to clarify spool compatibility across the entire series.

A photoshoot more than 2 years in the making, with the initial shots taken during the unboxing back in 2023, and the rest taken recently as I began composing this review;

An oversized box with a slip cover.

Lots of foam padding inside.

The handle is embedded in the flip side of the top foam pad, and its shaft has a neat thread protector. That's similar to Okuma's flagship spinning reel, the Makaira.  

The reel itself, inserted into the foam inside this spacious box, providing a high degree of safety during shipping.

Made in one of Okuma's Chinese facilities, and the number in the foot is not an individual serial number but instead a batch number identifying the particular version. Almost all reels from all brands go through mostly minor but occasionally major changes during the model's production life, and this batch number enables Okuma to identify the exact variation of the reel when it's sent for service or repair, then either repair it with parts that correspond to its particular variation or upgrade it to the latest specifications if deemed feasible. More on this later.  

Aesthetically speaking, the black/golden colour scheme remains a classic, as well as a safety net that's able to absorb some visual crimes and still make a reel look decent. That safety net had to scramble into action and deploy here, because the Tesoro commits the visual felony of dressing in such an illustriously glossy black finish. I mean this thing is so glossy it could reflect intense beams of sunlight into the eyes of commercial pilots 30,000 feet high and cause the death of hundreds! Seriously, that shiny thick black finish looks like it was applied with a can of spray paint in someone's garage. The only other thing I've seen in my life that shines this much is the cheap waxy leather preferred by pimps and gangsters. 

You think I'm exaggerating? Here, try it out; without using AI or seeking help from experts, can you tell which is the Tesoro, and which is the favourite boot of a 300 pounds rapper whose criminal record is so extensive they decided to list the few crimes he hasn't yet committed on it to save paper?

Not so easy after all, right? Actually the Okuma is on the right and the boot is on the left. I know it's impossible to tell just by looking, but you can logically conclude it by the presence of the zipper, since they wouldn't put a leaky zipper on a reel that's supposed to be waterproof.

The retina-burning gloss aside, the gearbox is shaped like an actual box, and other than a raised surface with angular outlines, it has no details or embellishments. The gearbox is barely saved from looking plain by the silver body bumper at its rear, and the highly intricate handle hood pulls the eyes away from the gearbox and distracts from how boring it looks.

The "twist" effect on this hood is quite unique and like nothing I've seen before. 

This too is very unique. The rotor has a classic "square bracket" outline ⏘ , in which both rotor arms rise at a right angle, yet these arms are supported by curvy limbs anchored in the middle of the rotor's basegiving them the appearance of tree branches growing around the spool. It's an elaboration on Okuma's distinct rotor design that's been on some of their smaller reels for years, and stylistically speaking it's in stark contrast to the soulless gearbox. The centre of the rotor is ported with large windows opening to the rotor nut, another aesthetic feature that doesn't match the simplicity of the gearbox. The black bail wire looks elegant though, particularly that it's connected to a black line roller which in turn is attached to a black bail arm for an uninterrupted dark streak.

Overall, the Tesoro lacks a unified visual theme and it doesn't make up for it by being optically interesting in any other way. Had the entire reel looked plain it might still have had an attractive aura of seriousness, but a stale gearbox paired with the extreme flare of both the rotor and the handle hood renders the Tesoro a characterless hybrid, and the corny gloss only pulls the whole thing further down. It certainly isn't a beautiful reel, and while I wouldn't go as far as calling it ugly I'd still say it's not good looking. It's a weird looking reel that falls short of the passing mark, but not by a lot.

Comes with an oil tube and a spool band....

As well as schematics, instructions manual, and a warranty paper.

In a clumsy presentation, the bag of extra spool shims is stapled to the schematics. These shims are used to adjust and tune the line lay on the spool.

The manual basically teaches people how to cast. In all of human history, has there ever been a single person who bought a reel then learned how to cast by reading its manual?

Look who's here! The spool shimming guide uses a drawing of the V System, Okuma's flagship spinning reel back in the good old days when no one believed that slicing little boys turns them into girls and you could take a walk without your phone being snatched or the pavement getting blocked by delivery dudes fighting with machetes. But I digress....

What comes with the Tesoro is not standard across the globe;

In Japan this reel is sold as Zenith-Tesoro, and it comes with Japanese language paperwork and an extra egg shaped rubber handle grip. Otherwise it's the exact same reel inside out with identical markings, and the name "Zenith" only appears in marketing material but not on the reel itself. This stems from a close alliance between the Japanese rod maker Zenith and Okuma, whereby nearly 7 years ago Okuma injected money into Zenith, who used it to restructure and change their business model from a boutique rod builder in Japan to a mainstream rod brand offering more affordable rods made for them by Okuma in its overseas factories. Zenith also became Okuma's distributor in Japan, marketing this reel as "Zenith-Okuma".

Fun fact; they did not cut a space in the box's foam to house that extra egg grip, instead they just insert that grip in the empty space on the spool where the line goes. Maybe by the time you read this they'd have started scoping some foam to properly house that extra grip, but for now they are just pushing it into the spool. I admire this very much, because I'm a lazy person who finds such a legendary level of laziness truly inspiring. Respect.

An even funnier fact, this Zenith edition is promoted in Japan with videos showing fishermen being so serious and intense, just like Daiwa and Shimano do, something I recently teased them for. Certainly different to the cheerful advertisements Western markets often get.

Anyhow....

When the Tesoro came out in 2023, it was priced from US $360 for the 6000 to US $400 for the 18000/20000. Due to inflation, the 6000 has gone up $10 to US $370, while the 18000/20000 has increased by $20 to US $420. The cheapest reel now though is the 4000 which didn't exist back in 2023, priced at US $360 when it was announced in July 2024, and it remains at this price at the time of writing.

The Zenith-Tesoro on the other hand was a bonanza

For almost a full year after release, that Japanese market edition could be purchased at extremely low prices due to weak Yen, with savings as much as a US $145 discount for the 18000, which was about 35% less than what it cost in the USA.

And they shipped free from Japan as well, and arrived very quickly. 

Today, a US based angler can still buy those Zenith editions at considerable discounts, but he has to set up an account on Amazon Japan and pay shipping because Amazon USA no longer cross-lists them, and sadly now it will be charged customs duties since America is preparing to eliminate the $800 "De Minimis" exemption in just a few days on August 29th. For decades Americans enjoyed the ability to import personal items without paying customs, within a threshold that kept increasing until it reached $800, but now it's all coming to an end.

I rushed a few orders from Japan myself to try and squeeze them in before the 29th deadline, but now they're either delayed or stuck in the chaotic US customs as everyone scrambles to prepare for the new rules. The end of the $800 De Minimis exception saddens me, but I'm not angry because no other country has such a big allowance, and everyone except America charges duties on pretty much everything with only very small allowances, as small as $3 in Indonesia for example. The US, being the global economic hegemon, used to be uniquely generous in this respect, but now that it's becoming just like everyone else I have no right to be mad.

All said and done, customs in general are one of two laws that I detest and consider unethical, the other being requiring fishermen to throw back a fish that's wounded beyond survival to die painfully and wastefully if it doesn't meet size regulations. What is the moral justification of forcing someone to pay hundreds of dollars in order to bring home a nice watch they bought in Switzerland or a fine reel they got in Japan, bought with money that the government had already taxed multiple times before allowing the person to keep what's left of it? I understand imposing customs if a government wants to stop a foreign country from flooding its market with cheap steel or cars in order to put local manufacturers out of business then control prices having achieved monopoly, but in the vast majority of cases customs don't protect any local businesses and it's solely an imposition. Who exactly are the British watchmakers HM Customs are protecting by tariffing my Grand Seiko Spring Drive? Who in the US makes a reel similar to the Tesoro in order for CBP to shield them with customs charges?

Sorry about this digression, but I'm basically eulogising decades of doing what I do completely care-free, often having bundles of reels sent to America to await my return to play with them and rant about them to you.

Since this Okuma is a completely fresh platform, I thought I'd show size comparisons between the 20000 Tesoro and 20000 reels by the two other main brands. Of course there are size variations between reels bearing the same size number even within the same brand, but these are meant as general approximations of typical 20000s, not something that's accurate to the millimetre or anything.

Versus Shimano's 20000 Spheros SW-A. The Tesoro has a deeper spool, the Spheros has a taller spool. The depth and length of a spinning reel's spool is about more than just capacity, it also affects casting as well as drag performance, something I often discuss when reviewing individual reels.

With Daiwa's 20000 Saltiga of 2020. The Okuma has the deeper spool, the Daiwa has the taller one.

And with Fin-Nor's Offshore 9500A of the 2016 generation, which is the correct match for 20000 reels, not the 10500A which was a "Mammoth" size class. Anyhow, the Tesoro's spool is still deeper, and the Offshore has the taller spool by a hair. The current owner of the Fin-Nor brand discontinued fishing gear and now mainly sells eyewear, but I chose this reel for the size comparison because it remains quite popular among budget offshore anglers, a crowd who'd naturally feel curious about the Tesoro.

The 20000 Tesoro weighed 940.5 grams (33.17 oz), a tad heavier than Okuma's claimed 928 grams (32.7 oz). That's 12.5 grams or slightly less than half an ounce of difference, which isn't much for a reel of this size and I'll consider it reasonably accurate. I also weighed a production 5000 at 452 grams (15.9 oz) which is even closer to the advertised weight. Mid-sized Tesoros are also within acceptable margins of advertised weights, and while I have not verified the weight of a production 4000 and can't comment on the accuracy of its advertised weight, I have no reason to doubt its veracity judging by the rest of the series.

Unboxing my reel in summer 2023 wasn't my first experience with the Tesoro series, as I had already seen pre-production reels and played with a few more at a trade show. It was nevertheless my first interaction with a production version, so I sat back and let the data flow from the Teoro into my eager brain;

The reel is certainly heavy, noticeably above the average weight of this type of reel in every size class. That heft though is not without its reward, because the Tesoro instantly gave me the impression that the extra weight went into increasing its structural rigidity. The frame felt extremely strong, pending actual testing against powerful fish, but I didn't need to wait before realising that the rotor was the most rigid rotor I had ever seen on any spinning reel with a skirted spool, at the time of that unboxing in mid 2023. Yes, I'd just uttered a superlative, and in "all-time" absolute terms without qualifiers of price range or type. Of course I'm specifying "skirted spool" reels because the historical full cup rotors are a whole different design theory. Before the Tesoro, that title belonged to its big sister, the Makaira, who kept it for 6 full years before its little siblings snatched it away. I gripped the Tesoro's rotor arms, clinched with all my strength, and the amount of flex I felt was definitely smaller than what I got from the Makaira, or any other reel for that matter.

That was an impressive start, but I wasn't very impressed with the small amount of rotor back-play that I immediately sensed. Well, it might be unfair to call it small, because it's so minuscule I couldn't even capture it on camera to show it to you, but the back-play certainly exists along with a felt thud indicative of clutch instability.

Another thing that didn't exactly excite me;

They clogged the gap of the handle with grease, apparently thinking it provides extra "sealing". This does nothing because one spin of the handle creates a gap in the grease, allowing water to get in but now that water can't get out or dry quickly thanks to the cracked wall of grease blocking the way. 

I had to remove the grease before I continued getting a feel of the reel because it was irritating me. Don't do that to a reel that already has dedicated seals in there. It does no good.

Turning the handle, the Tesoro felt "Japanese smooth", if you know what I mean. Smoothness, correctly defined, is not the ease of turning the handle as the erroneous belief continues to be. Rather it is the consistent feel and fluid meshing without felt or heard mechanical noise or areas of resistance or roughness either in the gears or other parts of the mechanism. The Tesoro was surprisingly smooth and had such a refined feel to its turning I wouldn't have been able to differentiate it from a Saragosa SW-A had my eyes been covered.

The Saragosa, by the way, is a reel that's going to be mentioned a few times today, since I was convinced that Okuma made the Tesoro to directly compete with the Saragosa SW-A as well as other reels that had already been attempting to match the Saragosa. This is a group of saltwater oriented spinners whose price hovers around the US $350 mark, presenting themselves a class capable of stopping larger fish than the standard general use saltwater reels, for those who catch fish that are big but not big enough to warrant the large investment in a true big-game spinning reel. I had always used the Saragosa SW-A as a reference point for this entire group, since it was its leader and the one all the others aspired to beat.

In terms of "free-spinning", which actually means the ease of turning the handle, the Tesoro wasn't bad at all for a reel that's fully sealed by rubber. It's slightly tighter to operate than a Daiwa BG MQ or a Penn Spinfisher 6 or 7, but not by much. Not saying that the Daiwa or the Penn are equal to the Tesoro, rather I'm only using these common reels to give you a comparative sense of the free-spinning of this Okuma. As always, gear ratios are taken into consideration when comparing free-spinning, because higher gear ratio reels require more effort to operate than lower ratio ones.

The bail wire opens wide and clears the way for thick springy leaders to fly freely. It's made of aluminium instead of stainless steel to reduce weight, and it's thicker than standard wires to make up for aluminium's lower strength. The bail opening motion is crude; the first 10% of the motion is done against very little resistance as if the spring can't deliver enough force that far, then the resistance picks up suddenly until I hit a rough toggle point where I could feel parts rubbing, requiring extra force to overcome that busy spot, after which the spring force fully reverses and the wire flips itself open for the rest of the motion. It's all mechanically sound and it's not anything one notices during actual fishing, but as usual I tell you every detail. The bail is not as smooth as many cheaper reels, but this affects nothing on the practical level.

This wire is finished in black as mentioned in the aesthetic overview earlier, which got me concerned since in the past I've had reels with finished wires that ended up with the finish worn off by braid friction, leaving a rough surface instead. I was going to keep my eyes wide open for this one.

The drag clicker sounded crisp and surprisingly loud. I had specifically dug up the 2020 Saltiga earlier when I needed a Daiwa representative for spool size comparison, because I knew that I'll need this particular reel for another comparison; drag clicker loudness. Listen to how the Teso fared against the loudest drag clicker ever to appear on a spinning reel....

The Tesoro is not as insanely loud as the Daiwa but it's not far behind, and its sound has a metallic tinkle to it that's strangely satisfying. I was looking forward to hearing it go off in a noisy sea environment where a loud clicker is always appreciated. Sizes 5000 and up have this loud clicker, but not the 4000 which has an ordinarily sounding one.

That pleasant sound is produced by this coil spring powered stainless pawl....

.... slamming against the limbs of this ring attached at the bottom of the spool. The ring's size and shape amplify the sound.

Metal slamming against metal does produce rich sounds, but it causes wear too. Current generations of top tier reels employ special polymers with dense molecular packing, which transmit the shock waves to the body of the spool to emit sound with very little wear. Anyhow, the wear seen here on my Tesoro's clicker is a result of more than 140 hours of use that included many lengthy drag clicker activations.That's a lot, and the ring is still good for a few more years, after which it's easily replaceable if the sound becomes subdued. 

Now to spool the reel for the first time

The spool has these two raised textured rings, whose job is supposed to be securing the braid against slippage. They are integral to the metal of the spool, not rubber. I don't know whether or not they work because for such a big reel I opted for the security of mono backing, but I really wish they had just trusted us with a smooth spool and let us do it our way. The Tesoro is not a beginner's reel, and whoever fishes it would certainly know how to secure the line their own way. Those spooling "aids" are becoming a pet-peeve of mine, and I now find them as silly as line clips, both in my opinion belong on toy fishing kits and not serious gear.

Began spooling, more line was being stacked near the bottom of the spool, so I stopped and took the spool off to reduce the shimming.

Found two shims of different thicknesses already installed, which when added to the extra ones in the plastic bag make an excellent selection both in number and thicknesses available. 

Removed this big girl....

Problem solved, and the line lay looked good enough to me. I don't seek the closely laid and tightly packed coils that form a straight edge and look cool in promotional photos, rather I want a lay that fits the purpose of the reel, which on a heavy duty spinners like the Tesoro would be angled cross pattern to prevent line digging when fighting fish on high drag settings. I'd actually be concerned if I saw that photogenic straight edge close coil lay on a big saltwater reel.

I spooled the 20000 Tesoro with Sunline Siglon PEx8 #5 (80 lb), multi-colour since it's the PA jigging version. It took about 550 metres of it on top of about 10 metres of 80 lb Ande monofilament and leaving enough room for about 10 metres of leader. That leader was initially 50 lb Seaguar Blue Label fluorocarbon, but later changed to the same line but in 60 lb test. Early 2024 I flipped the braid so that the fresh part protected deep in the spool came to the top, then in July that same year I replaced it with a new spool of the exact same braid, which remained on it till the end. I stuck to the Seaguar Blue Label because I no longer want to spend money experimenting with other fluoro, even by Seaguar itself, since the Blue Label is in my book so far ahead of the pack it's pointless to try anything else for heavy offshore saltwater work. That verdict was actually validated a few days ago in a most unusual manner;

So, I have those frames where I keep the actual lures/hooks I caught my most special fish on, along with the leader and a piece of the braid preserving my miserable frayed knots. Why? Because I'm a silly man.

I caught one such special fish earlier this month (not related to the Tesoro, you'll see it in a future review), then framed the jig and line and put the frame in my suitcase to take it home to its buddies whenever I go back. I then opened the log file to add the details of this new frame to it, and realised that of the 7 very special catches already in the log since I started this tradition in 2013, all but one were caught on a Blue Label leader. The 7th was on a Varivas mono leader, which inspired me to add some of it to the order I rushed from Japan. You can probably spot it in the Amazon screenshot several paragraphs above. With this new 8th frame also containing a Blue Label leader, I felt more assured of my decision to not use anything else for the foreseeable future, except for when ground/water/fish particulars allow me to switch to mono for cost effectiveness. But I keep digressing....

Having manipulated the drag knob a few times during spooling to adjust line tension, I noticed an issue. If I keep turning the drag knob it feels alright, but if I leave it for about 10 minutes then try to turn it, it initially feels heavy to turn, as if the drag was set to a much higher pressure, and once I overcome that initial heaviness the knob breaks free and feels light to turn again, and it continues to feel normal as long as it's not left still for several minutes. I've seen a lot of baffling stuff in reels in my life, but nothing as bizarre as this phenomenon. Why is time a factor here? It either has an issue or it doesn't, and since it does then it should always be there. Why would it only appear if it's left for a period of time? The only theory I could come up with, which wasn't even remotely convincing, was that maybe a spring in the internal knob detent was slowly pushing the pin deeper into the click holes of a synthetic ring. When the 14000 came later on it did the exact same thing, so I knew that, whatever it was, it wasn't an isolated issue limited to my reel.

The issue wasn't crippling or requiring urgency, so I decided not to investigate it immediately and to instead fish the reel and see if that time-activated stickiness goes away with use. It didn't go away, nor did it get worse either, so I just kept going, and now I was finally about to seek an answer for this mystery....

Here is the culprit, which for 2 years would momentarily trick me into thinking that the drag was set to a much higher setting whenever I turn the knob following minutes of inactivity. The drag knob is internally sealed, something completely unrelated to the upper sealing of the spool itself, and the internal knob seal is buried into the plastic housing of the knob, and when left still for a while the rubber slowly rests expanding its contact surface with the plastic housing and creating that momentary stickiness. Rubber against plastic will generally cause binding, but if they really had to do it this way then the rubber seal should've been smaller for a reduced contact surface, or a harder type of rubber should've been used. This issue is in Tesoros 8000 and bigger, but I haven't seen it in smaller ones.

Let me quickly elaborate on internally sealed drag knobs, and why they are sometimes indispensable;

Broadly speaking, there are two styles of keeping water out of the spool; one with an early seal (left), and the other with a deep seal (right).

Each of these types has its own advantages and disadvantages. The early seal, for instance, shuts saltwater completely out of the spool's well, which makes cleaning the reel easier and protects the internal mechanism of the drag knob since it's on the safe dry side. Yet, that early seal contacts the spool across a larger surface, creating resistance that potentially interferes with the smooth operation of the drag. On the other side, the deep seal contacts the spool across a much smaller surface and it allows heat to dissipate from the spool's well more efficiently, but it lets saltwater get deeper into the spool and leaves the internal mechanism of the knob vulnerable to it. 

Reels that have the second type, the deep seal, will be one of two things; either a mediocre reel whose maker will leave the knob unsealed internally and hopes it corrodes slowly, or a good reel whose maker will include an internal seal for the knob's mechanism.

The Tesoro is a good reel, so its drag knob has an internal protective seal, which in this case happens to be a mischievous one that binds with the housing and drive me crazy for half a second each time. I can probably find a smaller gauge seal and replace it, but the issue is more of a mild annoyance than anything serious, so I'll leave it alone.

Moving on....

Here is the internal mechanism of the knob, which is powered by a wave spring. This type of spring has several advantages over standard coil springs, most important of which is its more gradual application of force even under high compression, unlike standard coil springs that act closer to a solid tube when highly compressed, manifested as a spike in their rate of force application. In spinning reels' terms, a wave spring maintains a linear drag increase at higher settings for a wider range and better drag control, while a standard coil spring begins gradually but as it compresses it increases the drag more rapidly with the same amount of knob movement.

Of course there are exceptions to everything, so there are terrible quality wave springs out there with inconsistent characteristics, as well as speciality high performance coil springs that behave very similar to a wave spring. The latter are usually heavier and occupy a larger space than even regular coil springs, so might not be a viable option in every scenario. A good wave spring still has disadvantages, most notable of which is its stiffness, meaning that while it's more consistent across the range, it does feel stiffer from the get go and might require some getting used to by someone who's used to the feel of the more common coil springs.

All in all, this wave spring is a great addition in the Tesoro, a reel made to catch big fish in the hands of strong men who won't mind some extra spring stiffness at lower drag settings. Now if I had any female readers I would have evaluated it differently and said....  Well, who am I kidding? If I had female readers I wouldn't be writing these wretched reviews and would instead be offering free courses on tying FG knots or identifying different groupers, in person and over dinner and a movie, until I meet one who looks like my gal Naomi Watts and marry her. Why can't you be women? Some of you? One of you? You are ugly and I hate you.

The knob has a plastic outer case, which is small in diameter yet has a high bar offering enough space to grip securely and comfortably. That bar also diverges outwardly on both sides, essentially capturing wet fingers in the middle and preventing them from slipping. A thoughtful design that actually works, and Okuma didn't make a big fuss about it or even mention it. Had it been Daiwa or Shimano they'd have called it "HyperHydroGrip III" technology and released 12 videos of extremely intense fishmen saying that it saved their lives, then added $300 to the price of the reel for including it. Well, I don't know why I'm selectively picking on the Japanese duo here when Okuma does plenty of this nonsense too. I mean "Cyclonic Flow Rotor" and "Flite Drive"? Come on!

The drag knob has a metal thrust tube.

And the "deep seal" of the spool is mounted on the spool itself instead of the drag knob....

That's because it's an "oil seal".

Oil seals offer a level of precision and protection against water that O-rings and washer seals can't match. They are built with two rings, the outer one has a buried metal frame to fit accurately and maintain stability, while the inner ring wraps around the rotating part securely across a larger contact surface, providing a higher degree of waterproofing. That inner ring is often tilted, so as it wears out during use it self-adjusts to maintain good sealing. Such a snug seal normally increases resistance and tightness in a reel's operation, so each manufacturer has a choice to make based on their priorities. I love Okuma's choice here, going for a next level waterproofing at the cost of some tightness that's perfectly tolerable, as I described it earlier when evaluating the free-spinning of the Tesoro. The DNA of the Makaira can again be seen here, since it too makes extensive use of oil seals.

Premium quality seals made by NAK of Taiwan. Some oil seals in smaller reels are of dimensions not offered by NAK so they come from other brands, all high quality nevertheless. I've previously expressed amusement that high grade Okuma reels use their home country's top seal manufacturer "NAK" while top Japanese reels feature ones made by Japan's own preeminent brand "NOK". 

The components of the small top stack drag unit, topped by a ball bearing for the spool to spin on.

A tube passes through that bearing, transferring pressure from the knob at the top to the drag's discs below, without stressing or disturbing the bearing. Oluma copied this from other brands, but other brands also copy stuff all the time so it's all good.

That tube was so fascinatingly light I had to scratch the finish in a hidden area to make sure it's metal. Need to research this alloy because it's intriguing.

The big clicker ring beneath the spool is keyed to the body of the spool, in addition to being fastened by screws. Little details that, to me, indicate Okuma's seriousness about the Tesoro project. I wish they treated all their projects with the same care, but unfortunately I don't believe they do, as I'll explain in a minute.

The clicker ring (red arrow) is off. Seen it being referred to as a "heat radiator", which it certainly is not since it sits on top of a large rubber seal (blue arrow) completely disconnected from hot drag components.

That large rubber seal of the main drag unit is sourced from the good folks of NAK as well.

It's actually rubber moulded over metal as seen on its flip side, again for maximum stability and efficiency of sealing across a wide range of humidity and temperature conditions. Examining this seal was the moment I started realising that the Tesoro might be priced too low for its build quality. When I examined comparable reels I found their components and overall build to match what we typically get for their respective prices, but the Tesoro was beginning to feel a cut above in terms of value for what it costs. Interesting.

A sealed ball bearing (blue arrow) to complement its sister at the top, surrounded by a gigantic drag brake washer occupying the entire available space, once more Makaira style. That washer has a little lip (inset) to guarantee it won't slide and turn against the spool's body. Another thoughtful touch. 

Bottom drag units with large washers remain a legitimate solution to generate a large amount of stopping power, without the complexity and costs of materials and support systems required to achieve similar results in a top stack. Specifics vary by individual reels, but generally speaking large bottom drags spread heat and dissipate it more efficiently, they work with little stress by converting small pressure to substantial braking since they grip the rotating body further away from the centre of rotation (image), and a washer of larger surface area does indeed result in more braking for the same applied force even though Amontons' second law of friction is correct. Let me explain;

That law addresses ideal conditions involving perfectly smooth and rigid surfaces, but in real life other elements often interfere, such as surface irregularities, limiting the law's scope. In this particular application, a reel's drag, the surfaces are expressly designed to be neither rigid nor smooth, so the larger the area their surfaces grip one another across the more braking that's produced. You can observe this at home by placing a bottle that has a square section on a glass surface and pushing it, then laying it on its side and pushing it again. It feels harder to push when it's touching the glass surface across its larger side, even though the force (its own weight) remains the same.

These bottom drag units aren't without disadvantages though. They increase weight, require extra space thus often push the spool higher where it puts more bending stress on the shaft during a fight, and their brake washers compress when drag is tightened, bringing the spool slightly down since it sits on top of these washers, which alters line lay.

It's been argued that washer compression can't possibly be enough to change how the line is laid, but that's nonsense since the shims specifically included to alter line lay can be as thin as 0.3 mm (0.0118 inch) or even thinner.

That doesn't mean that the top stack is universally better. Despite its many pluses the top stack has several negatives as well, such as requiring a larger number of washers to achieve a combined big surface, heat is generated and trapped in this "sandwich" requiring support systems to eject it, and this heat is in a dangerous location right at the centre of coils of line that's easily damaged by temperature. Drag design is such an intricate game of balances and choices, particularly when considering the countless other elements involved such as the material of the metal discs, their thickness, their surface topography, the type fibres (or the hybrid) in the brake washers' weave, density of that weave, its direction, lubrication, etc. You might think I'm about to whine and complain of how painfully complicated it all is, but to be honest it's one of the aspects that make what I do very enjoyable. This was a criminal digression though. Back to the Tesoro....

This large washer is thin, tightly woven with little compressibility, and has a harder than usual surface that's made for long life instead of sacrificially shedding fabric for "butteriness". You'll hear how this manifests in performance on the water later on.

See the black powder on the metal washer, some of which I wiped to examine at 1 to 3 O'clock location? That's all the material the washer lost in 2 years, and I didn't service it once. This thing is going to last. 

The main shaft is made of titanium alloy. 

Titanium is neither lighter than aluminium nor stronger than steel as the myth goes. There are endless numbers of different alloys that make these three, and only when comparing fringe ones can some of that myth be technically true. In practice, titanium offers a good strength to weight ratio, but it's heavier than aluminium and isn't a match to steel in tensile strength. The Tesoro's shaft being made of titanium alloy gives it two main advantages over a comparable stainless steel one; 

1) It's lighter.

2) It's less susceptible to bending because titanium alloys have lower ductility than stainless steel. This means that under moderate loads stainless steel would bend more than titanium alloy does, yet if the load is increased too far, the titanium will suddenly shatter while the stainless steel will bend more but recover once load is gone as long as it stays within its elastic limit. 

So to put it simply, the shaft of the Tesoro wouldn't bend as much as a stainless steel one would, but the stainless steel shaft can survive higher loads. 

The biggest disadvantage of titanium in this context though is that its surface would have a higher coefficient of friction against almost any other surface when compared to stainless steel. In other words, a titanium shaft would produce more friction while interacting with other components of the reel than a stainless steel one would. We'll see how Okuma mitigated this as we delve deeper.

Look at these "tree branch" supporting limbs of the rotor. Aren't they special? Not our subject though. The spool hub on the shaft is fixed, therefore continuing to disassemble the reel from this side is impractical.

To continue, the plastic rear bumper of the reel needs to be removed.

Okuma smudged the metal behind it with grease for protection, since the areas trapped behind these bumpers are known to corrode on reels of various brands.

Wiping the grease exposes two holes through which the rods of the oscillation mechanism are inserted, one being retained by the upper edge of the bumper and the other is retained by a small post moulded into that bumper. This reel was seemingly done by meticulous people who went over every little aspect and left nothing to chance. Such attention to detail.

The screws of the gearbox have washers to protect the metal. 

Taking those screws off is all that's needed to remove the side cover, which, as always, is a fantastic feature. Being able to access the drive train by removing only a few body screws and without having to take the rotor off makes it easy for the owner to clean and relube the gears and check for any water intrusion. Not that water can find its way in anyhow thanks to the layers of sealing, one of which is seen here in the form of a sealed ball bearing.

Beneath which is, as you probably have already guessed, a tight fitting oil-seal.

The unused opening is closed off by a machine cut metal cap.... 

Which has an O ring seal.

And a perimeter seal goes around the entire gearbox. 

And just like any serious reel intended for heavy work, solid studs are embedded into the gearbox and fit into corresponding holes in the side cover. These ones are made of brass, and they have two tasks; first they guarantee a precise fit between the gearbox and the side cover to preserve gear alignment and waterproofing. Second task, these solid studs make the side cover almost an integral part of the frame by distributing stresses to it and letting it take part in resisting them. Basically a reinforcement girder that's interlocked with the frame via these studs. I love my Saragosas and they perform extremely well within their designated limits, but their plastic gearboxes aren't in the same league.

The oscillation block rides on two stainless steel rods for smoother movement under load, when a fish is pulling against the drag and twisting the shaft hard. The oscillation block being captured by these body-mounted rods also provides the main shaft with third support or an "anchor" as I like to call it. This anchor resists some of the forces the main shaft is subjected to and stabilises it.

Here are the rods, both have seals where they meet the holes in the frame, since the rear body bumper has no sealing at all. When Okuma created the Makaira they wanted no holes in it, so they created an elaborate system to retain these rods within the gearbox without breaching it (inset). Just a fascinating detail that I recalled and wanted to share. At any rate, the rods in the Tesoro get extremely dirty fast, which is a phenomenon that occurs with similar rods in other reels, including even high end Japanese ones, but at least in the Tesoro one can easily pop the cover off and clean then lube these rods every once in a while.

The locomotive oscillation gear (red arrow) is very stable without perceptible play, which is a feat that's not as easy as it sounds. It rides on a ball bearing (blue arrow) for smooth operation, and it has an extraordinarily big and sturdy post (yellow arrow) for a powerful connection with oscillation block, but that post is integrally cast into the alloy oscillation gear and has no sleeve to reduce its friction with the  channel at the back of the oscillation block (green arrow). No big deal, just could've been considerably smoother and longer lasting with a simple synthetic sleeve, considering that they went through the trouble of mounting the entire gear on a bearing.

The back of that gear, with the synthetic washer it rests on to reduce friction against the frame. See? Pretty simple and they already know it, why not on the post?

A closeup on the oscillation block to see how this hard working mounting hole is faring after these years. Remains in excellent condition, and still has many more years of service to offer.

The drive gear. Created by machining a disc of C6191 aluminium bronze alloy, sometimes known as "marine bronze" due to its extreme resistance to saltwater corrosion which makes it popular for ship components. Okuma picked this alloy knowing that fishermen will instantly recognise its track record of excellence extended over almost 20 years, having been used to manufacture the drive gears of Saltigas beginning with the Saltiga Z of 2001 until it was replaced in the 2020 generation.

This gear is threaded onto a stainless steel shaft, and while I haven't disassembled it to verify the threading method because it would weaken it, the nut shaped tip of the shaft pretty much gives it away.

They tell us it's 20% larger. Larger than what? The Tesoro is a first generation reel without a predecessor to measure against, and there wasn't even an equivalent model prior which the Tesoro could be considered a legitimate heir of. 20% larger than Okuma's own average gear? And how did they calculate that "average" and which reels were included in that averaging and in what gear ratios? They apparently just wanted to jump on the wagon of Shimano's and Daiwa's advertisements and have their own 'Gear is X% Larger" coloured image. Shut up Okuma, don't be ridiculous.

Look at that. Can still see the machining pattern on the teeth uninterrupted by wear, and the only sign of usage is a different sheen on about 70% of the tooth, which is a great contact percentage for a reel of this price. Another part that should keep going and likely last for the entirety of the reel's service life.

The drive gear has an activator wire that connects it to the emergency anti-reverse pawl.

This pawl. Now if the main anti-reverse clutch slips or fails due to wear, contamination, or freezing weather and allows the drive gear to spin backwards, its activator wire would bring this emergency pawl down....

.... to engage these stainless steel ratchet gears on the pinion, stopping the reserve rotation. This emergency stop can keep the reel fishing just like an old style ratchet system that allows a bit of back play, until the trip is over and the main clutch can be fixed. 

This backup system exists in this exact form in medium Tesoros 8000 and up, and with this the Tesoro stands high above comparable reels that either have it only in full size reels 18000 and up, or have a complete joke made of plastic that would blow up to the stratosphere if activated during a time of actual high pressure. I'm not basing anything on speculations, I tested that plastic nonsense and made it fail. 

Anyhow, the Tesoro's emergency stop isn't only superior to competition in its price range, but it's actually this reel's second clear cut win over its own big sister, the Makaira. The Makaira has a reasonably tough emergency stop in medium and full size reels as well, but it works by stopping the drive gear instead of the pinion which is risky. A powerful fish would be pulling against a ton of drag, the clutch slips or fails, and suddenly the pinion is free to rotate backwards while the drive gear is stopped by the ratchet, and now it's up to the meshing teeth of the drive gear to resist all that load. As I said when I reviewed the Makaira 8 years ago, I'd rather lose the fish with all my braid than warp or shatter the gear's teeth like that. Good job there Tesoro, good job.

The pinion is also a machined C6191 aluminium bronze piece, and it's unquestionably tough.

See for yourself. Looks essentially unused. What else can I say or add? Not only is this coupling strong and durable, but it's also largely responsible for the reel's exceptionally smooth and fluid feel.

With the main shaft out of the way, the front portion of the reel can be taken apart. This nut retainer/cover shows yet more thoughtfulness, with screw holes that allow the retainer to be in a number of positions depending on where the nut beneath it stops when tightened.

The back of the retainer, with a dedicated seal for the main shaft. This one is not an oil seal, rather a standard one. An oil seal on the titanium shaft would have resulted in a large increase in resistance, likely taking the reel to levels of tightness close to submersible surf reels such as Van Staal surf models.

The rotor nut is very big, supporting the rotor across a larger surface for strength. I've seen heavily used big game reels of older generations whose rotors have been savagely pulled by large fish too many times, the metal of the rotor yielded and the nut got embedded into it. Designing heavy saltwater reels is exponentially more complex than designing general use reels, since every part needs to be thought of very carefully and extreme eventualities taken in consideration. So far I think Okuma has been doing a classy job at that.

That nut has a sinking threaded tube for an increased grip of the pinion.

And that's how Okuma mitigates the friction of the titanium shaft; the Tesoro has a floating-shaft feature with a ball bearing (red arrow) to eliminate rotational friction with the shaft and a synthetic bushing (blue arrow) to minimise the sliding friction in-and-out. Yes, a full-fledged top tier floating shaft system in this mid-priced reel.

The second half of the floating shaft system inside the gearbox, in the form of this low-friction bushing sitting behind the ball bearing of the pinion to lift the main shaft and keep it centered, preventing any excess friction between it and the inner wall of the pinion. I meant it when I said "full-fledged". As you probably know, isolating the main shaft from the pinion dramatically reduces power losses to friction and sends more of the fisherman's energy to the rotor. Its benefits are most felt in high pressure situations where various parts are under load yet a good floating shaft keeps a reel winding smoothly with little rubbing or binding.

When the bail is opened for a cast, a lever slides down the back of the rotor to contact a rubber brake ring on the frame, preventing the rotor from spinning during a powerful cast. All Tesoro sizes have this brake, which plays a more essential role in sizes 4000/5000/6000 since these have automatic bail closure, meaning the bail can be closed by turning the handle, while bigger reels have manual bail closure. This rotor brake works well, but the rubber ring makes contact with the brake lever early, stopping the bail short of completing the final ~5% of its opening stroke and requiring a manual push to sink the lever into the rubber and fully open that remaining 5%. Here is a video;

This is not a problem, and those final 5% will never cause the bail to close inadvertently. It's just a quirky characteristic that the 2008 Stella SW 18000/20000 also had, and it disappeared in that Stella over time after the rubber had been squeezed enough times.

The pinion assembly cover is metal (red arrow), and it has an oil seal (blue arrow). Here comes a demonstration of the importance of the batch number mentioned earlier; in my early reel this oil seal wraps directly around the alloy of the rotor to shut water out, but in subsequent batches Okuma upgraded this and placed a cup and a seal around the rotor's neck, and the oil seal then wraps around that cup for freer rotation and slower seal wear. They issued different schematics for the updated batch;

Neat stuff. Now when a reel comes in for service, they'll check the batch number in the foot and know which parts it needs.

Beneath the cover, another seal for the pinion assembly, and it's the final piece that completes the 100% waterproofing of the body and spool of the Tesoro. As I stated before, reels that are fully sealed spread across a spectrum of how securely sealed they are, and in my book this reel sits higher on that spectrum than any other boat reel except the Makaira, which is an accomplishment since there is nothing above the Makaira except the overly tight surf fishing specialists. Okuma says the Tesoro is "IPX7" rated, but you probably know that I view these ratings as marketing nonsense that's too simplistic to be applied meaningfully to the complex structure of a spinning reel, which has too many entry points for anyone to credibly certify each following the tests, in addition to the unexpected ways a reel can take water during different fishing scenarios or even suck it in if it happens to be winding at the moment of drenching or heavy spray. IPX rating is better left to things like phones and cameras, while reels can only be tested by fishing and fishing then taking a break to watch a Naomi film for the 35th time then fishing again. I did that, and I rated the Tesoro "IP Chef's Kiss" on an actual fisherman's spectrum. 

You know; when listing examples of what could be IPX rated, I initially added to phones and cameras a nasty device that some decadent women use in the shower, but then I went back and deleted it because I felt ashamed knowing that God is watching. Meaning that by bringing me back to faith our Saviour is actually saving you from my degeneracy. Well, I am still a degenerate, but no longer excessively so. Ha!

The main ball bearing is sealed (red arrow) and sits inside a metal sleeve (blue arrow), and the anti-reverse clutch (yellow arrow) is mounted behind it so that it's protected from overloading by that main bearing on one side and the smaller ball bearing of the pinion at the other side (green arrow).

The anti-reverse clutch is the first ordinary part in what so far has been an extraordinary reel. It's a common build powered by plastic V springs pressing the brake cylinders into position, with similar dimensions and components to clutches found in the vast majority of reels being built today. It worked well, and the slight back-play mentioned earlier did not originate in it. I will show you the source of that play in a minute, but first let me give a bit of a simplified background on the use of one way clutches in spinning reels in general;

With some specific exceptions, anti-reverse clutches usually sit in slightly oversized housings that allow them to move. This would be due to one of two reasons; 

First, the difficulty of casting a frame/housing with enough precision to tightly capture a clutch, which even if achieved might cause issues since clutches are made by external manufacturers and will themselves have small size variations due to normal manufacturing tolerances. Meaning, even if the housing is perfectly sized, a batch of oversized clutches might not fit at all, and another of undersized ones will still play around. 

The second reason a clutch housing would be oversized, is when it's done on purpose to keep the clutch in a floating state, able to self-adjust for wear, thermal volumetric changes, and to create maximum simultaneous contact between all brake cylinders and the rotating sleeve in its centre for optimum braking; this rotating sleeve can't possibly be touching all brake cylinders to the same degree all the times, but once it spins, it pushes away the closest cylinders and consequently pulls the farther ones on the other side closer, achieving a balanced evenly distributed contact with all of them. The body of the clutch has to float in order for this to happen, and it sits on (or under) a piece of fabric that applies enough pressure on it to keep it locked against the housing so it can't rotate, yet it doesn't stop it from sliding laterally when pulled by the cylinders during the balancing act described a second ago.

This second style has been mastered by Shimano and Daiwa, the former in a large number of its model and the latter in some high end ones;

Examples of Shimano's clutch (left), and Daiwa's high-end clutch (right), pointing that essential piece of fabric in both cases, which keeps them locked against the housing unable to rotate yet still allows iinstantaneous horizontal movements.

Okuma though belongs in the earlier group, who would cast slightly oversized clutch housings for ease of installation and accommodation of supplied clutch tolerances. But they never really seemed to find a reliable strategy for preventing the expected back-play. For example, back when the aforementioned V-System was in production, Okuma did this....

They dropped Loctite on the clutch to keep it still, which did work but made disassembling the reel for service a difficult and a messy task requiring special tooling to break the Loctite without damaging the pinion. Then they seemed to have given up and just let the rotors spin backwards in almost all but their flagship model. Please take a second to click HERE and scroll down to Okuma's booth, where I explained the extent of the problem and videoed the reels on display themselves displaying major back-play.

For the Tesoro, Okuma apparently took a new approach, that's somehow in the middle of the road

They tightened the octagon walls of the housing, but not to the point of attempting to grab the clutch firmly. The housing no longer allows the kind of play seen in the video in the link above, yet they still left a tiny bit of clearance to allow easy assembly and compensate for any small changes in clutch manufacturing. This is why the Tesoro's back-play is so small I had to describe it earlier as a "thud". My verdict, I'll accept it for a reel of this mid-price, since I know it exists yet it's too small it completely vanishes by the time it transfers through a rod and line so that it's not felt during fishing at all. I'd scream bloody murder had it been a thousand dollars reel from which I expect absolute refinement, but in the Tesoro I'll give it a pass.

The ambidextrous handle has a generous amount of threading, and I had it attached to the right side for a brief while just to ascertain that there weren't any operational issues and that the second set of threads were as solid as the first ones.

The handle has a ball grip whose main body is made of Okuma's C40X carbon reinforced plastic. I'm partial to egg knobs, but this grip was very pleasant to use it might make me consider revisiting my order of preferences at some point. Much more comfortable than metal ball grips, less slippery, and proved to be tougher than it looks.

Sealed from this side.

And spins on two ball bearings of excellent quality that gave no problems at all. The Tesoro keeps pulling ahead of its similarly priced group and flirting with the next tier of construction quality.

The shape of the handle stem and its large joint nut is a definitive tribute to big multiplier reels. Okuma's way of telling a fisherman that the Tesoro is a serious game reel before he knows anything else about it. The good folks at Okuma appear to love this handle a lot. I mean they have such big affection for it they had to tell us about it twice in the 2025 official catalogue....

Sorry. I spot those little details then fail to suppress my childish instincts. The handle of my 20000 is 85 mm in length. Which is measured like this;

Needed to show what handle length actually means, because I recently saw this

That's a video by the official Shimano South East Asia, showing the length of the handle in an incorrect manner. It's done in the way I demonstrated using perpendicular vectors in order to obtain a length that works in the torque equation. A handle could have all the squiggly lines it wants, but their combined length as shown in Shimano's video gives us a useless number.

Small Tesoros have 70 mm handles, mid sized ones have 75 mm handles, while the full size reels have 85 mm ones. That's pretty much the sweet spot that balances power generation with usability, something that's needed to be said because some people whom I won't name *COUGH Dawia COUGH* have been pushing the boundaries a bit too much with handle lengths that could potentially disrupt. Lengthening a handle lets the user generate more torque, but in the meantime a longer handle slows down the winding because the user's hand now has to do a larger diameter circle. You can better grasp the concept by imagining turning an extremely short handle barely as long as your finger, then imagining that handle becoming as long as your arm. Having to move in a larger circle slows down the winding, disruptive for both casting and jigging. 

Jigging is what I did mostly with the 20000 PA, but I made sure to do at least fifty casts on each outing, whenever it was practically doable, just to learn its casting and lure retrieving behaviour and make sure everything works as it should. Both the 14000 and 20000 cast very decently, the rotor stays perfectly still even when I violently swang to send annoyingly light weight Rapala floating Magnums far enough, and the extremely light aluminium bail wire put my mind at ease that it will never slam closed by its own inertia. I caught absolutely nothing casting the Tesoro, so let's move on from this embarrassing paragraph.

The reels easily cleared inshore tasks, landing dozens of Jack Crevalle up to ~8 lbs and Cobia as big as ~35 lbs plus too many small groupers to count, never intentionally targeting them because I gave up on deciphering the complex laws governing them yet they kept inviting themselves to bait that wasn't theirs. The thick ugly paint I fussed about proved very resilient, surviving repeated slammings and heat-of-the-moment drops around the boat with only light surface scratches but no chipping or real damage. Don't mock my earlier sentiment on it; I said it was hideous, not that it was weak.

For the next phase I flew out to folks I first met while testing the Saltiga years earlier, who'd since been able to put me on top of fish whenever I needed it, even in the dead of the Winter. Over there I jigged Meagre up to 60 lbs, Amberjack as big as 70 lbs, and some narrow-barred Mackerel close to that but not quite, mostly trolling between spots. Weights are loose estimates to the best of my ability since I release most catches in the water not to traumatise them by rough lifting into a wooden boat by people more acquainted with gaffing everything. Not worth it for the sake of an accurate weight. I only kill what I intended to eat with the skipper and deckhands, such as this babe;

I normally steer clear from eating these due to tail parasites, but it was very cold and I convinced myself that they might be cleaner than usual in that weather. The 14000 Tesoro was responsible for this fish's rapid transition from swimming in the deep to drowning my stomach acids.

To properly challenge the 20000 Tesoro I resorted to bait of cut Mackerel, which didn't yield the catch size I wanted to test the reel against yet got acceptably close with a single bluefin that took close to 20 minutes to land for which my lowest weight estimate is ~90kg. My poor right biceps suffered, but the Tesoro didn't. The incredibly rigid rotor instantly delivered pulls to the drag without flexing delays, the drag reciprocated with lightning fast responsiveness with barely a hint of starting inertia, and I would sometimes reduce the drag setting slightly below what I'm capable of fighting at just to mimic a different fighting style where the spool screams and heat is generated. Heat had minimal effect on drag performance, and, amusingly, in certain instances when a lot of line was out it seemed that the reduction in drag pressure due to heat was counterbalanced by the perceived increase in drag force as the level of line on the spool dips.

The only thing that's keeping me from classifying Tesoro's drag among the elites is a certain characteristic where whenever the fish slows down and its pull falls below what's needed to overcome the drag, the spool stops instantaneously. I know that on paper this sounds normal. What's wrong with a drag stopping once the pull falls beneath what's required to keep it going? Well, I'm not saying that it's wrong, but rather I feel that elite drags now deliver an extraordinary smooth stoppage with what I could only describe as "floating slippage to a stop", which gives a great buffer for when a fish slows down but quickly picks up speed again and the spool accordingly picks up speed without stopping since it was still slipping to a stop and hadn't actually stopped. This drag characteristic eliminates the need to overcome starting inertia over and over, which means absolutely nothing when one is fishing 3 or 5kg of drag, but is something that unnerves when one is tensing against 10 or 15kg of drag. To translate all this nonsensical drivel, nothing wrong with the Tesoro's drag, instead some other reels have entered the realm of buttery stoppage long after everyone had mastered the buttery start, and they just can't all be put in the same class together. That said, if I make a list of the top 7 drags I've ever fished at the time of writing this, the Tesoro will most likely be on it.   

Another of those who met their demise, this time at the hands of the 20000, this one because a deckhand wanted it instead of a cash tip to eat it with his family, and I gave it to him in a roundabout way initially pretending it's mine until we passed the checkpoint at the port then I passed it to him. For some reason coastguards strictly limited what locals can take while foreign visitors could do whatever they wanted, therefore the scheme. I fish some truly strange and often unsettling places, but if I hit the glamorous destinations it would cost me 5 times as much, which is unsustainable for a one-man operation with a free website. These are stories for another context though.

The Tesoro was fished up until late Spring this year, although over time it had become less of the focus of my work as I began testing other reels and the Okuma took a secondary role, yet I still learned more about it on each trip and my affection for it grew each time. I learned that its pleasant drag can be heard 6 metres away through engine noise on a boat, that it atoned for its heft with a reinforced frame that's almost on the same level as the rotor, that despite having lesser winding power than a Saragosa it felt smoother under extreme load, and that its drive train remains today as tight as the day I unboxed it, foretelling old-school longevity of the highest order.

As long as it stays in my collection I would not hesitate to target fish up to 130kg (285 lbs) on it if needed, and even slightly larger ones on occasion. I would not do that with any of this reel's competitors. At least not with anywhere near the same confidence.

I can report that the finish of the bail wire didn't wear off, and in addition to its visual novelty factor, it helps braid slide smoothly onto the roller with almost no friction. 

The photo above also captures slight damage to the finish of the screw's head, typical of that resulting from the use of improperly sized tools or a tool slipping during assembly. It doesn't affect the metal of the screw itself or go beyond the surface finish level, but as usual if I see something I say something.

The bail wire is a genuine one-piece type with no joints where it meets the line roller with its indestructible DLC (Diamond-Like Carbon) coating. This is the third and final win for this reel over its parent brand's flagship, the Makaira, whose bail wire is jointed into the line roller in the classic style. Not a criticism for the Makaira since its setup is reliable and works great. Just something that everyone else has moved on from, and maybe it's time for the Makaira to catch up.

Actually, and let this be an approved digression please, it's time for the Makaira as a whole to be refreshed, particularly as it approaches its 9th year anniversary next year. I'm sure that if this ever happens Okuma will do stuff that my limited brain can't even envision, but no matter what they do, I really hope that the gimmicky "pre-set" drag knob goes away, that the reels get an emergency anti-reverse that engages the pinion, that they will have a hardened spool lip, and that they'll keep the machined body and forged internals because that's the reel's distinct persona. Trying to emulate what others have been doing for decades and have become extremely good at is too risky. Back to the "Treasure", as an Italian or a Spanish would say....

The screw of the bail arm extends out of the arm's joint. Line doesn't get caught on it and it has a safe Torx head free of sharp edges. Don't mind it in this class of reels.

The bail mechanism is as reliable as everything in this reel has been so far, but it's rudimentary and it's no wonder the opening motion feels clunky; the spring has a connector rod going through it from the top (inset) which stops half way through it, and without an internal guide and due to the angle of the spring, the rod rubs it internally while the spring itself makes contact with wall and cover (removed) while it compresses. It's something that's there, but I never once paid attention to it on the water so it doesn't bother me.

What bothered me though was a faint bump that I began feeling in the line roller while rotating it with my finger under tap water to rinse it. I first felt it about a month into fishing the reel, but it might have been there earlier and I just missed it. It is this unnoticeably faint. It wasn't the kind of issue that necessitates halting the process and doing an early disassembly, so I decided to just monitor it in case it gets more pronounced, which it thankfully didn't.   

Time to find out

A tightly fitting screw with enough loctite, but the schematics that came with the reel showed a washer between the screw and the bail arm which wasn't in my reel. I wonder if it's an oversight during the assembly or if they decided to get rid of it. It's still present in the latest version of the schematic though, so it's looking more like an oversight in my reel. Anyhow, the line roller has already been imprinted with locking serrations of the screw and its finish looked intact, so I decided not to replace the washer and leave it as is.

The line roller has shielded bearings, so the line roller itself must be sealed.

Nope, no seals!

Yes, bearings that have standard metal shields with a gap. They aren't sealed, and the line roller housing them isn't sealed either.

Looked around carefully, searching for any other form of protection, such as interlocking walls with small gaps that water would bead on and not penetrate, but there was nothing. This is an unprotected line roller running on two unsealed ball bearings.

The faint bump I was feeling originated in one bearing, while the other was fine. I removed the shield of that bumpy bearing and looked for physical damage in the races or the cage using a powerful loupe, but found nothing. All components were in pristine condition. The inexplicable bumpiness aside, these are excellent quality bearings that had no trace of corrosion.

Okuma have them etched HPB for High Performance Bearing, and it's certainly one of these infrequent instances when a marketing slogan actually reflects reality. Anyhow, I sprayed and brushed the internals of the bearing clean, greased it, and the issue fully disappeared and the bearing spun so outstandingly smoothly I decided to give the same treatment to the other one. Looking at all available evidence, my assumption is that the bumpiness was a result of contamination that my thorough cleaning got rid of. Naturally I lean towards the obvious explanation that it must have been salt deposits since neither the roller nor the bearings are sealed, yet my words have repercussions and I follow strict ethical standards before making any statement of fact, therefore I can't say that the issue was indeed caused by salt since I lack the means to verify that beyond doubt. What I can certainly say though is that I find this design choice quite perplexing, and that I personally made the decision not to install these bearings back and instead ordered sealed ones from an external source to replace the original ones with.

When I first heard of the Tesoro it appeared to me as yet another contender in the arena of mid-priced heavy duty saltwater reels, a category defined and led by Shimano's Saragosa, surrounded by other reels trying to match up to it with various degrees of success. Yet once I started fishing it, it gradually dawned on me that, in principle, this Okuma does not belong in this category. Rather it inaugurates a whole new category slightly above it, then sits in it all alone with its capability to subdue larger fish than any reel in the existing category beneath it, without seizing, overheating, breaking, or even flexing. I don't know yet what to call this new category pioneered by the Tesoro, but it sits squarely above the mid-priced heavy duty division with nothing above it except apex big game spinners. Capability aside, the Tesoro delivers a taste of smoothness that typically comes at a much higher price, its accessible gearbox makes it rapidly serviceable, it operates with a safety net of a reliable backup stop in two size classes, it's more securely sealed than a boat reel ever needs to be, and it comes from one of the industry giants with all the perks this brings from extensive networks of service and parts to desirability and resale value.

Normally, a finding of this magnitude would see me wrapping up the review then celebrating by sticking a fat Nicaraguan in my mouth as I add the reel to the Top Picks page (a Nicaraguan cigar that is, you weirdos), but sadly none of that will happen. I inserted "in principle" at the beginning of the previous paragraph, because while Okuma showcased the immense talent of its design team as well as its unmatched in-house cost-effective manufacturing prowess in this reel, they strangely chose to give it an Achilles' heel with the unfathomable decision to neither seal the roller nor seal its bearings. It's akin to a car company creating a marvelous sedan whose build and performance match cars twice its price, but refusing to install a windshield in it and insisting that you'll be fine if you and your family wear goggles before driving off.

The Tesoro could have become one of my most frequently recommended reels to readers seeking to cover a wide range of needs, from a convincingly waterproof light beach reel to a bluewater monster hunter as long as the angler won't be running into 200kg giants, but instead I'm left shaking my head at a reel that, despite having a few minor nuisances, could still have become an iconic trailblazer and one of the most remarkable values for money of all time, but one small decision wrecked it all.

It just wasn't meant to be, and life can be funny this way sometimes.

That's all for now. If you value what I do and want to support my work and upcoming projects, please do that by clicking HERE. Always appreciated.

Cheers

Alan Hawk

August, 27th, 2025

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