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Whats your favorite vintage fly reel ?

338375 said:
I do like old stuff. I still have trouble with change. It takes me quite awhile to try newer stuff. Usually when I do, it has already long since outdated :D



Funny you mentioned that. When I was about 14 years old ( about 38 years ago :D) my parents bought me a matching Eagle Claw spinning rod with a Mitchell 300 reel, and a fly rod.
Even though I have a few newer setups, I usually go back to my old stuff. I do like using an ultralight though from time to time...

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I had a similar experience with a new Mitchell spinning reel some time back. I have always liked the old Mitchells, they are great reels. A couple years ago, my wife bought me a new spinning rod, with a new Mitchell reel... :eek:
Wow, have they changed. It worked fine, but it is mostly plastic. It got removed, and I found another old 300 and put on it :D
Click to expand...

I still have my Mitchell 301 --- Bought new in the late 60s. It's a left hand reel: one of the first available.
 
My dad gave me his old Fenwick fly rod with a Pflueger*Sal-Trout reel along with a bunch of his old fly tying stuff this past summer. Im a teenager so my dads stuff isnt crazy old but its at least 40 years old. I started tying flies this past summer and been using his rod alot on a local river. I live in Georgia and been killing the panfish on the river with the flies ive been tying, but I dont think im good enough to fool any trout yet haha.
 
I still have a Cortland reel with several weights and tapers on their "swappable spools" an 8-9wt bass bug taper and a 2 weight for gills. I can't bank fish anymore due to spinal cord disease that neccesatates seated fishing.
 
Idaho.jpg
South Fork of the Boise River

Great thread! Just went last weekend for the first time ever! :thumbup:
Just what I need: another hobby! :D
 
I'm sitting here killing time, waiting for a storm front to pass by so I can take off on a canoe camping trip here in the Adirondacks. My pack rod (5-wt.) is packed, along with one of my favorite "vintage" reels: an Orvis CFO. I have a good selection of older reels including a couple of Pflueger Medalists, South Bend and Martin automatics, and a few Hardy's, but the CFOs are my all-time favorites. I have them in several sizes, click-and-pawl and disc drag, and saltwater models. They aren't really that old ('70s and up) but I consider them "vintage" because they have been pretty much left behind by the newer large-arbor type reels made by several companies, including Orvis.

Machined reels were the top-of-the-line at the time. Today's CAD/CAM in manufacturing has made machined reels common-place and much more affordable. And that's great! I don't think you can match the feel of a quality machined reel clicking away smoothly (or buzzing madly or screaming for mercy).

The original prototype was made by the late Stan Bogdan of NH, a famous name in machined fly reels.







Good fishing,
desmobob
 
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