Old Spinning Reels

[wb0ldj]

I was digging through my "stash" this evening and found a box full of miscellaneous reels. When I was a kid, I fished all the time with my dad, but he's been gone a lot of years, and I just haven't had the bug for a while.

I wanted to throw out some things from my earlier years (I'm 73, btw). My dad always used a Shakespeare Wondereel (Model FG) with his spinning (not spincasting) rod. A bunch of you likely are familiar with this reel, but for those who aren't, it's a closed-face underspin reel with the crank on the left side like an open-face reel. To release the line (bail on an open-face reel), you just back-crank the handle a few degrees and the retrieve tooth pulls in to let you cast. I still have his old reel, which I've overhauled, as well as an almost-new one I found years ago on E-Pay.

I really got spoiled to using that reel, so much so that I hated trying to use an open-face reel. I also felt clumsy using a spincast reel, because I got accustomed to controlling the line with my index finger instead of my thumb.

I was just wondering if anyone out there still uses a spinning reel like that. In the last few decades, there have been so many upgrades and technology improvements in rods and reels that you just never see a reel like that at Bass Pro or Cabelas.

Please let me know what you think.
Mike

[Paul Roberts]

Hi Mike. Nice to hear that you’ve kept your dad’s reel up. Shame when good reels fall into neglect or disrepair, as well. Maybe you’ll get out and give it a whirl again.

I’ve not used an “underspin” type reel myself. But I have a friend, Colin, i haven’t fished with in some time, who used a Shakespeare Wondereel for his stream trout fishing. He loved the ease of operation of that reel type.

I’ve been an open face guy for a long time and have simply got used to the hazards of an exposed spool of line, and of the idiosyncrasies of specific reels I own. As a fisherman,there are advantages to the open design: weight, retrieve speed, range of line diameters, ease of switching spools, namely. So i never went to the underspin type. Colin loved his and we’d have some fun bantering about our reel choices while we fished. I miss fishing with him.

[gadabout]

I have one of those Shakespeare closed-face spinning reels and have fished it a couple of times. I never saw any advantage to that design. I think open face reels just operate more smoothly.

[Patrick Z]

You might enjoy this blog: https://fichigan.com. The author often uses vintage Shakespeares of this type and is a descendant of Jake Lucas that was featured on the cover of the Shakespeare booklet promoting their spin wondereels.

I admire the design and have purchased and used several of these types over the years, but honestly, I find them a bit awkward to use. The handle length to gear ratio seems a bit off (4-1, which is a bit faster than most spincast reels) and I find trying to trap or feather the spiraling line against the cork handle much, much harder than simply feathering the line off the rim of the spool on a conventional open-face spinning reel (the Mitchell 308 is the absolute best for me in this regard).