bulldog1935

I forgot to mention soft braided line - thanks Paul for filling that in. Brian, there are other folks who play with these - you might check our Old Stuff thread, and if you want to find parts and repair guys, as well as collectors and other vintage fishers, look up the ORCA forum.

made me look, it's 3:1 - but it's really torque-y. The knob on the end turns on the clicker and anti-reverse.

Don't take this the wrong way, though it's a trick little reel with a great history, it will always have modest value. Once they're out of the box with any use evidence, collector value goes out the window. (It's a little different for bench-made v. mass-manufactured reels - benchmade reels have a way of holding their original value in today's money, and some even improve.) Your reel has changed from its original type I anodize finish. The Pflueger Cub drag handle, of course, is not original. If you open it up, you'll find it to be a very simple mechanism. You'll be preserving it by keeping the insides clean of old decomposing lube, and adding new lube, if you want to use it, for either fishing or just lawn casting. If you enjoy it, by all means, take it fishing. ps - the Japanese are into Langleys now, and that has a way of temporarily raising their value. I remember when they were grabbing old Fenglas, Lew's and Phillipson rods, prices went through the roof, but now they're back to reality. I'll also admit, I've done well selling a few antique fly reels across the big pond.

The idea seems strange to me, because I've never seen line memory in braid. I've gone to all braid mostly because I hate line memory coils in mono/fluoro. All my one-piece rods are stored rigged and ready to fish, and while a fluoro leader will take a temporary bend set, never seen it in braid.

The only way I like to fish slow is bottom-bouncing a Teeny sinking line (fly rod) on our flagstone rivers. I've brought up endemc bass in winter that were marble-white - didn't have the metabolism to turn on their aggression colors. Trout fishing slow water with nymphs does nothing for me. I'd rather bottom bounce them as I just described, and love finding chutes where I can swing wet flies. Even at the coast, imitating shrimp below a popping cork is too slow for me, though I've rigged up friends with them and they've caught fish slow-trolling. The good thing, our shrimp migration usually coincides with finger mullet. On cold no-sun days at the coast, we paddle over redfish hunkered down in the grass like they're napping.

You scored big on that Cardinal - congrats. How about the smallest baitcaster ever made? Daiwa Coronet the little panic button brake is how you thumb the spool. It has a normal size reel foot, but they also made diminutive rods to match them. Makes nice contrast on this salty shelf

Offering one more alternative LW when Marhoff's patent exclusion was active. This is the Meisselbach Okeh. Meisselbach (and Meek Bluegrass) built reels from cut and milled nickel-silver tubing. These reels were famous for ease of take-down and maintenance. The LW mechanism required a little help. Rotating the handle backwards causes the line guide rider to fall forward and disengage. Stands back up on retrieve, and you have to place the line in the LW guide. Phil White used to maintain the most comprehensive website on Meisselbach and many other turn-of-the-last-century brands, Cozzone, Rochester-Carlton. Unfortunately he let it expire - much of the information has been archived on ORCA, but it doesn't have all the great photos and interactive layers.

When the pompano migrate through in the surf (right now), they primarily eat sea lice, and little pieces of gulp are the main bait. The feeding competition can get so strange that bull redfish in the surf reject live mullet and eat the gulp pieces, too. @TnRiver46 yes, bucktail jigs. My dad has fished pre-package "Spec Rig" tandem bucktail jigs as his go-to on the flats all my life, and he has caught every double combination on the flats with them, including snook. Along with spoons, were also the main change-up lure on the jetties for fall smacks. Redfish on his 78th birthday trip to Estes and a Palm Harbor house for 5 days. A glorious trip with 5 friends rotating through.

I've been rolling Allbright knots for 40 years, even shot them through my fly rod, so Improved Allbright is a go-to for me. Finagled this one to hit the black meter mark in X-braid

One of the most effective offshore lures is Halco Max usually in 110 (mm). You can cast it to pelagic fish sign, troll it, and my friend Glenn reports that when he's dealing with one rod and just drifting, he often gets kings on his second rod from the lure hanging idle. he's been doing this a long time and makes it look easy

The obvious choice is spoons - Johnson's sprite caught my first smallmouth at 12-y-o, and spoons (gold silver minnow, Kastmaster) are staple for both big seatrout, and Spanish macks from the jetties. A black nickel silver minnow is also a perfect crab imitation for wading the flats and sight-fishing - it both flutters down like a swimming crab, and crawls across the top of the grass like a crab, walking sideways and threatening with his big claw. We start our mornings on the flats with dog-walking plugs (Megabass Dog-X) and wakebaits. Most of what we use are also freshwater lures, with the hooks swapped with salt-resistant. Suspending twitchbaits are right behind the morning with the rising sun. When we're imitating glass minnows, Rapala-type plugs are pretty typical, generally smaller than what people are using in freshwater - as light as 1/16 oz. This is a YoZuri sinking Pins minnow. We use swim shad for fishing deep, in various sizes to imitate mullet, croaker and poecilids (killifish, mollies) and blennies (mud minnows). We fish a lot of these tied in tandems for schooling bait and pelagics - and get a few doubles because of it. On the flats, 3", 2" and smaller - offshore 6-9 inches We fish a lot of plastic swim baits, depending on how deep we're fishing, neutral-density up to 3/8 oz TSL grasswalker just above was designed for the flats, but my friend Tobin reports a lot of people chasing freshwater bass with them, especially on weighted swimbait hooks. Z-man Texas-eye jighead and 3" paddle tail Out of production Stazo flex-jighead with double hook on cocahoe minnow

If you want the cost-effective version, the closest is Korean-made NS Black Hole Dark Horse UL Rockfish - this 8' rod will also fish 10-lb braid. It's an unsanded blank, still with Fuji guides. The ebay seller is a reliable vendor. Matched with Stradic, not afraid to take this one out on a kayak. This rod got four spec doubles in November.

8-y-o Abby - she's just under 5 lbs - if you're doing something and she can't help, will find other ways to get your attention

I prefer sliders, and think the wake is more effective than the pop - I've actually seen the pop turn fish away

oh, you were going to sit in this chair? I'm sorry, but the sun's coming in here.

Then you better buy it now, because as much as they may tell you they won't mind later - they Will. Mine was UL (y'all can read this how you want). Yamaga Blanks TZ Nano 83 - the only spin/bait rod I ever bought that cost as much as a fly rod. It will throw 1/16 or even 1/32 oz and out-distance any other rod I own. Matched with Vanquish, it's shockingly light in hand. Purpose - winter glass minnows in the salt. In November, it landed a redfish + ladyfish double on tandem rig - natural baitfish were small poecilids, and good thing I had this, because the finger mullet migration was running a month late. Specs under the dock lights can be really tricky. If they're not feeding in competition, you frequently see them in pairs closed-mouth pushing the natural bait to test if it's real. If you want to use the word finesse here, it's on the detect strike end, more so than the cast.

Way to go Paul - thanks for playing. Great reels, and love the yellow on the SB. Back into the previous century, and example reels I don't own, but was hired to preserve. Patina is a term thrown around loosely, and in valuable nickel-silver antique fishing reels, red, green and pink isn't patina - it's active corrosion, and the colored salts themselves are corrosive. Copper-based alloys pit by a mechanism that doesn't produce visible holes or even much surface roughness - when the alloy dissolves in corrosion, a matte of pink copper metal plates back out. The process is dealloying. Valuable reels sitting on the shelf with this active corrosion are gradually disappearing every time the humidity changes. So my job is to clean away the salts, polish away (hopefully) shallow dealloying, polish the surface oxide and salts from ebonite (hard rubber), dress the screw heads as best I can - but too many times, people have already taken tapered screwdrivers to the screw heads, where they should have been using hollow-ground gunsmithing bits. Now the alloy can grow the gold patina it deserves. The three things that attack antique reels are organic acids from decomposing lube, residual salt, acids and ammonia from biological rot of wet lines and leather reel cases. Always remove old lines from valuable reels, and never store them in mildewed leather cases. So after that lecture, here are the cool reels, both valued in the mid-four digits: This is a Leonard Mills bi-metal, patented by William Mills in 1877, and built for him by Philbrook & Payne. This Spalding Kosmic, made by Julius vom Hofe, and patented in 1884, is even more valuable because of a short production run - the Kosmic name was a trademark infringement.

Lou's Daisy is a hit. One morning when we were coming in to the launch at Boerne City Lake (400 acres, no motors), a group of women were launching kayaks, and Daisy was a chick magnet - they all pulled out their phones and took photos. So one more photo.

I fished through most of 1000 yds of Red, probably 500 yds Senshi, a spool charge of Tatsu (broke off a lifetime snook - in all fairness, probably a gill-plate cut), and most of 1000 yds of Abrazx, which is my favorite of the bunch. I still have two reels spooled with fresh Abrazx, and everything else is braid + Blue or sometimes Abraxz leader on UL. I turned to Seaguar 15 years ago (had already been using leader), when dashing off to the airport, my stop only had high-strength Rio fluoro tippet, and that AK trip, broke off three 30+" Kenai rainbows at knots. (It was a work trip, but if you don't have a plan to play when the work is done, Alaska clients get peeved.) I've ended up never getting a larger AK rainbow than at home in my Texas tailwater. Have never looked back from Seaguar since. Knot strength is exceptional. Of course I use a lot of Blue leader in range of sizes, and just got my first spool of 30-lb Gold for surf reels. The Gold was tough to fold when coiling an Allbright knot (tougher than thicker 30-lb blue), trashed the first knot, then got really good results on the next two.

Seaguar doesn't call Abrazyx copolymer, but that's what it is. (so is Tatsu) Many of my salt friends use Sufix copolymer, and I searched it to this Tackle Advisors video on BR.

the reason to fish 6-lb braid and associated lures is partly to match small natural bait, but also so the fish Don't Know - - that you're hunting them. Here's my choice UL use - the biggest fish in this pile is 22" - we were releasing 16", and they're all schoolie males. Also happens to be our favorite winter fishing, and we'll probably go back in Feb.

check first whether the reel has a ball-bearing line roller. If not, it's not suitable for braid.

Tackle tinkering and other hobbies have been a respite for many since April. So "well-off" can have different values. My buddy built a wooden kayak from a kit that cost more than most high-grade PE kayaks. He said 80% of the work was sanding.

Have a fly rod buddy in the PNW who almost exclusively targets tiger musky on his 12-wt (the only line that will turn over his bass-size flies) - they look like gators in his photos. We have a spring creek here with deep impoundments and a wild population of northern pike stocked in the '40s - they're into the high 20+" and forage on the native bass, especially in the winter.