After yesterdays easy and informative history lesson, well move on and finish it. Chapter 3 - The Early Reels And Rods (Part 2) From 1880 tackle design evolved rapidly. Horsehair for the fishing line was replaced by silk covered with coats of oxidized linseed oil. Such lines were easily cast and sank heavily if ungreased, or floated if greased. The average angler could cast three times farther with these lines, and this allowed dry-fly and wet-fly fishing to evolve and become possible. In the Nottingham reel, ebonite (a hard rubber) or metal replaced wood, so that it became even more free-spinning. Since the reel revolved faster than the line runoff, a considerable tangle (called an overrun or birds nest in Britain, or a backlash in the U.S.) could result. Governors were devised to prevent this. In 1896 William Shakespeare (not related, as far as I am aware), of Kalamazoo, Mich., devised the level-wind, which automatically spread the line evenly as it was wound on the reel. In 1880 the firm of Malloch, in Scotland, introduced the first turntable reel, which had one side of the spool open. During casting, the reel was turned 90º, bringing it in line with rod guides, so that the line slipped easily off the end of the spool. For line recovery, the spool was turned back 90º. The reel was used mainly for casting heavy lures for salmon fishing, but it influenced the reel invented by the English textile magnate Holden Illingworth. This type of reel was called a fixed-spool reel while the Americans called it a spinning reel. In this reel, the spool permanently faces up the rod and the line peels off in the cast, as with the Malloch reel, but a wire baling arm is is clicked over to allow the line to be released from the spool when casting then clicked back across the spool to allow it to retrieve the line after the cast. In the 20th century, rods became shorter and lighter without sacrificing strength. Split bamboo was largely replaced by fibre glass and finally by carbon fibre as rod material. After the 1930s the fixed-spool reel was taken up in Europe and, after World War II, in North America and the rest of the world, creating a boom in spin casting. Nylon monofilament line was developed in the late 1930s and became dominant after World War II, as did braided lines in other synthetic materials. Plastic coverings for fly lines allowed them to float or sink without greasing, while plastic also became the dominant material for artificial casting lures.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 11:23:08 +0000
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