Multiplying Fly Reels
The first multiplying fly reels were introduced during the 1880s. Before that time, if an angler desired a reel which could pick up fly line more quickly than a single action fly reel, he or she would use a multiplying casting reel. Although designed primarily for casting bait and lures, some fly anglers continue to use smaller-sized Kentucky reels and raised pillar 2-to-1 reels multiplying reels even after multiplying fly reels were available.
Patented in 1883, this Frederick Malleson multiplying trout reel is one of the earliest known multiplying fly reel designs. The multiplying gears are stored behind the raised tail cap. The arrowhead switch on the faceplate activates a click check. The reel on the top row is the 1883-1884 introductory version. In 1885, the reel design changed from round to raised-pillars.
Was this mid- to late-1880s Acme multiplying reel with a click switch on the back a fly reel? The open wire spool is ideal for facilitating line drying, but the outward extending gears and handle assembly present a risk for line tangles. In retailers’ catalogs, this reel is listed either with fly reels or between fly and casting reel sections. John Kopf likely made these reels, and the foot contains his design patent date.
Raised pillar, double multiplying salmon reel, reportedly designed by the famous fly fisherman and inventor Edward Hewitt, was sold by William Mills & Sons during the 1920s and 30s. Designed to be fished below a fly rod, the click and drag control buttons on the tail plate are positioned differently than those on a typical raised pillar casting reel.
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Circa 1927, Edward Vom Hofe No. 434, Col. Thompson multiplying dry fly salmon reel has a sliding click and adjustable silent drag.
Between 1927 and 1935, Hardy offered a 2-to-1 multiplying model of their popular St. George fly reel. The reel included an adjustable check, tail plate perforations, and an agate line guide.
With multiplying gearing tucked behind the hard rubber faceplate, Edward Vom Hofe’s Tobique salmon reel has a handle at the center of the reel. The model was introduced in 1927. In 1946, Otto Zwarg took over production of this design under his own branding and renamed the model “Laurentian”.
Stan Bogdan’s handmade multiplying fly reels were sold through elite fishing tackle retailers between the 1950s and the first decade of the 21st century. Salmon and saltwater fly fisherman treasure the larger sizes of these reels. This Model 0 has an adjustable click check (knob) and unidirectional drag (lever).
Automatic Fly Reels
While some reel designers utilized multiplying gears on manually cranked reels to assist anglers in quickly retrieving loose fly line, others utilized springs and levers. Reels from which line can be retrieved without manually rotating a handle are called automatic reels. Most automatic reels employ a spring-loaded spring and a lever for line retrieval. Like multiplying fly reels, automatic reels successfully entered the angling marketplace shortly after six-strip split bamboo fly rods gained popularity and casting distances increased.
Loomis and Plumb began producing automatic reels in Syracuse, New York in 1881. (An example is in the 1866 to 1900 history section of this page.) Following the death of Francis Loomis in 1883, a successful upstart metal goods and office furniture manufacturing firm from Rochester, Yawman & Erbe, purchased the Loomis and Plumb company and entered the automatic fishing reel business.
Yawman & Erbie (Y & E) and Horrocks and Ibbotson (H & I, successors to Y & E’s reel manufacturing business) produced a side-mount automatic reel very similar to Loomis and Plumb’s design until 1920. The reel on the left was made between the 1890s and early 1900s. In 1898, Y & E introduced a second design that includes the addition of a hinged-handled key at the top of the reel (reel on the right). The spring for automatic retrieval can be loaded by manually turning the key. Because the spring could be loaded in two ways (stripping line and turning a key), the new design was called the Automatic-Combination reel.
In 1895 or 1896, Martin Novelty Works (that would soon change their name to the “Martin Automatic Fishing Reel Company”) introduced a low-profile fly reel that was well received by the angling public. The spring can be manually loaded, like the Y & E Automatic-Combination Reel, by rotating the knurled cap. With a serial number of 164, this example is likely from the first year of production.
Introduced in 1904, the side-mount Carlton “Automatic Reel” is light weight, has a “free spool” mode in which the spool is disengaged from springs and gears, can be manually loaded, and has conveniently-placed controls.
Hendryx “Old Virginia Reel” an upright automatic reel from the early 1900s that can be “loaded” by stripping line or turning the handle crank. Based upon the scarcity and condition of the examples that appear on the market today, the spring mechanism and finish of Hendryx’s reel were inferior to those of Y & E and Martin’s reels and did not sell nearly as well.
Between 1913 and the 1923, Meisselbach, Pflueger, and Shakespeare—three of the largest reel companies—all introduced automatic reels, as popularity increased.
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In the late 1920s, H & I introduced a new model of automatic fly reel to undersell other manufacturers. It was a big bulky but offered most of the features of more expensive competitors.
Shakespeare sold automatic fly reels well into the 1980s. They also made automatic fly reels for South Bend, Kalamazoo Tackle, and many retailers. The Shakespeare reel (left) was produced in the early 1960s, while the South Bend reel (right) was produced in the early 1940s.
Late 1940s Virginia Reel used rubber bands, instead of a steel spring, to load the spool. The rubber bands stretched between the spool assembly mechanism and a hook near the end of the five-inch-long vertical tube.
Next – Spinning Reels