Vintage Fly Fishing Reels

Unlike regular spin-fishing reels, fly reels are not meant to help an angler cast or reel in a big one, although they can be used to help with that last task of fishing. Rather, they are mostly designed to hold the line neatly in one place. Single-action reels are the most common fly reels, getting their name from the fact that as the reel’s handle turns one full revolution, so does the spool holding the line. This can make spooling long lengths of line a chore, so some anglers choose multiplying or even automatic reels, depending on the type of fish they are trying to catch. Historically, fly reels have been attached to fly rods on the rod’s seat behind the cork grip. For much of the 19th century, fly fishermen favored side-mounted reels, such as the Archimedean, which was patented in England in 1848 by Fred Skinner, and reels similar to the one patented in 1859 by an American gunsmith named William Billinghurst. Side-mounted fly reels had a good run, but then, in 1874, Charles Orvis of Vermont patented a nickel-plated brass fly reel that hung below the rod. Other early American reel makers whose products are of interest to collectors of vintage fly reels include Hiram Leonard, James Dealy, and William Carter and Jack Welch, who designed reels for Heddon during the 1920s. Other reel makers from that era were Shakespeare, whose Hercules reel was released after World War I, and Pflueger, whose Baitcasting Reel was sold under its Four Brothers brand. Hardy is the other name for vintage fly reels, as big in its own way as Orvis.