Shimano Ocea Conquest Series Explained: Which Model Fits Your Style?

Try shopping for a Shimano Ocea Conquest (オシアコンクエスト) from outside Japan and you’ll hit a wall of model codes before you hit a checkout button. Standard or CT or FT. Size 200 or 300. PG, MG, HG, or XG. Japanese anglers grow up decoding this alphabet soup; English-language shops mostly just list every variant side by side and wish you luck. There’s plenty of hype about the gold round reel, but almost nothing that tells you which specific model to actually buy.

That’s the gap this guide fills. The Ocea Conquest family is Shimano’s flagship compact round baitcaster for tairaba (鯛ラバ / タイラバ, the Japanese madai technique built around a rubber-skirted sliding head) and light jigging, and I’ll walk the whole current line-up using the official Japanese catalogue specs: what separates the standard model from the counter-equipped CT and the new finesse FT, when the 200 size beats the 300, and how to pick a gear ratio without regret. If you’re still weighing this family against Daiwa’s Kohga counters, our Shimano vs Daiwa tairaba reel comparison covers that brand fight; this article is for once you’ve gone gold.

Prices for JDM products are shown in JPY (tax included) with an approximate USD conversion at the time of writing (~¥155 = $1, July 2026). Always check live pricing before you buy.

What to Look for When Picking an Ocea Conquest

Every choice in this family comes down to four questions. Answer them in order and the right model falls out by itself.

• Counter or no counter. The standard Ocea Conquest reads depth by the marks on your braid. The CT adds a digital depth counter with a fall-speed readout. The FT drops both for a free-spinning finesse spool. This is the biggest fork in the road.
• Size 200 or 300. The 200 holds PE 1-2 and lives in tairaba and light jigging water. The 300 swallows PE 1.5-3, adds handle length, and stretches into heavier jigs and deeper drifts.
• Gear ratio: PG, MG, HG, XG. PG (4.8:1) is the slow cranker for even-speed tairaba retrieves. HG (6.2-6.5:1) is the all-rounder that picks up line fast. MG (5.7:1) splits the difference. XG (7.5:1, select models) is for deep water where slack line is your enemy.
• Fall control. Standard and CT models carry Shimano’s fall lever, a thumb-adjustable brake for metering the drop. The FT replaces it with an externally dialed FTB brake. Plenty of bites come on the fall, so don’t treat this as a footnote.

One boundary to set before the model sections: this family maxes out at 8 kg of drag. It’s a madai, snapper, and mid-size pelagic tool, not a deep-water amberjack winch. If your jigging lives at PE 3 and up, you want the Ocea Jigger side of the catalogue instead.

Shimano Ocea Conquest 200 and 300: The Round-Body Standard

The standard Ocea Conquest is the reel the rest of the family is measured against. Inside the aluminium HAGANE body you get InfinityDrive, MicroModule gearing, X-Protect water resistance, a synchronized levelwind that follows the line on the drop, and the fall lever. No screen, no battery, nothing to update. Japanese anglers shorten the name to “Oshicon” and treat it as the buy-once round reel for tairaba and light jigging, and after a decade of refinement it’s hard to argue.

The size split is clean. The 200 (295-300 g, PE 1 to 2) is the tairaba core: light enough to palm all day, with an 8 kg max drag on the PG version. The 300 (365-370 g, PE 1.5 to 3, longer 82 mm handle) is the crossover machine for heavy heads on deep drifts, light jigging with 100-180 g jigs, and a first taste of slow pitch. It’s also the only standard size offered in XG, which matters once you’re fishing 100 m and deeper. If that last sentence sounds like your water, our primer on what slow pitch jigging actually is pairs well with the 300PG. One honest caution: at this line class the 200HG and 300HG drop to a 7 kg max drag, which is still plenty for madai but worth knowing before you order.

Key Technologies

Key Specs

Who Is It For?

Anglers who already track depth by braid marks and would rather spend zero grams and zero yen on electronics. The standard model is the pick if you fish often enough that counting colors is second nature, or if you simply want the purest version of that MicroModule wind. Buy the 200 for tairaba-first fishing, the 300 if jigs share the deck time. It ships internationally from Amazon Japan; check availability and shipping cost at checkout.

Ocea Conquest CT: Same Reel, Now With a Depth Counter

The CT takes everything above and bolts on the screen: a digital depth counter with fall-speed display, a retrieve alarm you can set to fire every few meters, an LED backlight for dawn starts, and a user-replaceable battery. Same InfinityDrive, same fall lever, same synchronized levelwind. On paper it’s the standard reel plus information; in practice the counter changes how you fish, because “the bite came at 42 meters” becomes a number you can return to instead of a guess.

Here’s the part that surprises people: on Japanese list price, the CT is cheaper than the standard model. The counter versions run ¥55,000-57,750 against ¥60,900-61,300 for the no-counter reels, because the CT generations are newer and Shimano priced them keenly. The CT 200 comes in PG, MG, and HG; the CT 300 adds XG for a full four-ratio spread. The trade-off is the usual one with electronics: a screen and battery on a reel that lives in saltwater is one more thing to look after. We rated the CT the buy-once flagship in our best tairaba reels guide, and nothing in this year’s catalogue changes that call. And if your counter cravings run to PE 3-5 and proper deep wrecks, that’s a different animal: the Ocea Jigger CT carries the same idea into heavy-drag territory.

Key Technologies

Key Specs

Is the Counter Worth It?

If this is your first serious tairaba or light jigging reel, yes, and it isn’t close. You get the full flagship drivetrain, the screen, and a lower list price than the no-counter model; the only real cost is battery care and a little electronic clutter on a classic silhouette. Skip it only if you already read braid marks without thinking, or if minimal maintenance genuinely matters more to you than depth data.

Ocea Conquest FT 60: The New Finesse Specialist

The newest branch of the family went the opposite direction from the CT. The 2026 Ocea Conquest FT 60 strips the counter, the fall lever, and even the levelwind synchronization to chase one thing: a free-spinning spool that telegraphs bottom contact. Shimano’s official page bills it as a specialized finesse tairaba model. The tiny PE-only spool (0.6-200, 0.8-150) stops dead the instant a light head touches down, an FTB brake with an external dial handles cast control and fall-speed tweaks, and the whole reel weighs 225 g with a 5 kg max drag. It comes in 60MG (6.2:1) and 60HG (7.4:1), plus left-hand 61 versions, at ¥61,000 (~$394).

This is a specialist’s scalpel, not a first reel. If you fish light heads in shallow bays and current seams where feeling the bottom decides the day, the FT is genuinely new territory for the family; it’s also the only Conquest built with underhand casting in mind. At the time of writing it’s fresh from its April 2026 Japanese release and hasn’t settled into stable Amazon listings, so check current stock on Amazon Japan before planning an import.

Comparison Table

Here’s the whole current family in one view. Watch how the counter, the fall control, and the line class shift as you move down the rows.

Read it top to bottom and the ladder is obvious: line class climbs, fall control changes character, and the counter sits in the middle rungs where depth precision pays off most.

Best Value Picks: Top 3

If you’d rather have a straight answer than a spreadsheet, start with these three.

Which One Should You Choose?

Strip away the model codes and pick by the fishing you actually do most:

• Tairaba first, everything else second: Ocea Conquest CT 200. Take the HG for flexibility, the PG if you crank all day and love a slow, even retrieve.
• Half tairaba, half jigs, deeper water: the Ocea Conquest 300HG, or the CT 300HG if you want the depth number on a screen.
• Slow pitch curiosity building: the Ocea Conquest 300PG for the grind, or 300XG when picking up slack from 100 m matters more.
• Shallow bays, light heads, feel-the-bottom fishing: Ocea Conquest FT 60MG. A specialist, but nothing else in the family does its job.
• PE 3-5 and heavyweight fish: none of the above. Step up to the Ocea Jigger family before you bend something you paid $390 for.

For my own two yen: tairaba and light jigging fill most of my days afloat, and the gold round silhouette is so common on the boats around me that it barely registers as a choice anymore. What I’ve learned the slow way is that the model matters less than the ratio. Buy the reel for the retrieve you fish nine days out of ten, not for the one heroic day you’re imagining, and any door in this family will be one you’re happy you walked through.

All specifications are from Shimano’s official Japanese catalogue and product pages (fish.shimano.com), current as of July 2026. Product images are from Amazon. Affiliate links point to Amazon US and Amazon Japan (international shipping available); we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check your local regulations before fishing.

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マイボートで海に出るボートアングラー（釣り歴20年・ボート歴10年）。タイラバ・ひとつテンヤ・ライトジギングが主戦場で、エリアトラウトや堤防のライトゲームものんびり楽しむ雑食派。

実際に使った道具の「正直どうだったか」を、公式スペックと実釣の両面から書いています。

Boat angler based in Japan, sharing first-hand reviews of JDM tackle.