This ONE Baitcaster Delivers Great Value: The 13 Fishing Origin

Total Score: ORIGIN-C 8.33 - BEST VALUE AWARD

Total Score: ORIGIN-A 7.83 - GOOD

Introduction: Flagship reels seem to get all the spotlight. Anglers pine for their sexy profiles and drool over their top-end specifications, which drives us to save up our hard earned dollars for the opportunity to own these fishable collectibles. Yet it is the humble value reel that continues to sell the highest volumes, and delivers the most bang for the buck while catering to the largest audiences. To address this large market 13 Fishing has expanded their reel offerings with the new value oriented ONE3 Origin Series reels, only these baitcasters are designed to offer more style, features, and performance than what anglers have grown to expect from sub 100 dollar reels.

Looking for an aggressively priced value reel? The 13 Fishing ONE3 Origin-A is only 79 dollars

Twenty dollars more gets you the aluminum bodied Origin-C

Impressions: 13 Fishing continues to pave their own path when it comes to rods, reels, and most recently lures as well. This fast growing company has created a strong identifiable brand, and in record time too.

Both ONE3 reels feature the same compact profile

 
Known for taking chances and keeping things fun the team at 13 Fishing wanted to introduce a new line of value low-profile reels that didn’t require anglers to make all the sacrifices they usually need to make at the sub 100 dollar price point, which usually includes having to fish bland baitcasters.

Their answer are the ONE3 Series baitcasters which initially launches with two reels, the black Origin-A and white Origin-C.

The Origin-C features a mean looking matte white finish

What primarily sets these two reels apart are composite versus aluminum frames, higher-end bearings and drag components, and a twenty dollar price difference. Both reels feature the exact same compact profile and they are basically the inverse of each other when it comes to finishes. The Origin-A features a slick black exterior paint finish with white knobs while the Origin-C has a matte white exterior with black knobs.

These reels are modern looking with blacked out components

At the recent ICAST 2017 show the company rolled out a third variation, a seafoam green reel called the Origin TX, and as you probably already guessed is designed for inshore and saltwater use. The Origin TX is somewhat of an amalgamation of the two reels as it has a corrosion proof frame and 6+1 corrosion resistant high-end bearings.

The reel sits low on just about all reel seats

At first glance, and even when cranking on the reels for the first time, they look and feel like a quality product that could quite easily retail for over a hundred dollars. But initial impressions can often be deceiving, and I was eager to see if these value oriented reels fished like other sub 100 dollar reels or did 13 Fishing really deliver some extra value and fun-factor with these affordable entries?

Time to see how the ONE3 Origin reels measure up and compare to each other

Real World Tests: To test both the ONE3 Origin-A and Origin-C baitcasters we fished the reels for a period of three months. We spooled both reels with Sunline Super Natural monofilament and Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon and paired them with a variety of rods including offerings from 13 Fishing’s own Omen Series as well as other branded rods to see how well they balanced out with a wide range of sticks. We targeted both spotted and largemouth bass in a variety of Northern California lakes and the California Delta fishing everything from lightweight plastics to big baits.

Both reels proved to be good casters but the Origin-C handles the light stuff a little better