We run Diawa's for walleye on Erie & for Salmon on Ontario. If they can stand up to the 1st run of a 20-30lb King Salmon they can handle a 7-12 lb walleye. I live within 1 1/2 hours of Cabelas in WV. And I've seen too many of their Cabelas line counters in the "bargain cave" that it makes me a little on the cautious side to purchase one. If you're going to spend the money for a Cabelas, what's a few extra dollars? We used to run Okuma's & they ran good. The only problem was their life expectancy didn't seem to last over 6-8 years. After that we would start to see problems with the drag sticking, line counter not working & so on. Even with tearing them down, cleaning & regreasing them regularly.