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Post 04 Feb 2021, 16:36 • #26 
Guide
Joined: 03/08/14
Posts: 243
Location: US-MO
I just got a couple of old classics to tune up and play with!


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Post 04 Feb 2021, 21:14 • #27 
Master Guide
Joined: 03/09/15
Posts: 684
Location: Arkansas
WOW. Great thread.


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Post 08 Feb 2021, 16:31 • #28 
Master Guide
Joined: 04/20/17
Posts: 387
Location: Portland, OR
I go with classic 308/309/408/409 Mitchells...originally marketed as "Ultrasport" in 1959, they were they utralights of the Mitchell line...durable and still easy to get inexpensive parts....the 308/309 are not super smooth, but the 408/409 are pretty smooth with the upgraded helical main and pinion gears. The photos are a first year 308 pimped with 408 gearing and teflon drag washers...I'd rather not go into battle with a 15lb metal head or 20lb Chinook in open water with one of these, but haven't had issues below that...pair it with a 605 and its classic fun...or just go with the 308 Pro with upgraded high speed gearing and handle, though a bit harder to find at only 2000 made... photo heavy below...





















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Post 09 Feb 2021, 08:55 • #29 
Piscator
Joined: 08/10/05
Posts: 19077
Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
boxed Mitchells are always a great score, and rods bent by fish a great presentation.
There's a nice step in quality between the 308 and 408, and the latter has been my recommendation to many friends for their cane UL's.
Good effort to improve your reel. (I always take photos going in to get me back out, and yours would make a great tutorial thread)


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Post 09 Feb 2021, 09:30 • #30 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/20/07
Posts: 8920
Location: US-ME
Amazing to see Grey ghost's "old classics," and no doubt they are, which puts me in the "very old" classic realm, since they look so modern to me with their taller spools, fully skirted to surround the reel forebody, with arm-mounted bails. I think I have one of that type, but I do so little spinfishing, that these days I get new line and reel(s) now and then at the end of ice-fishing season on sale for 5 dollars or so. Plastic usually. If they work long enough for a season or two of crappie fishing, I'm happy. "Plastics, old man, plastics." When I see those classic modern spinning reels, I figure I am missing out. If I were taking a trip through the Allagash where the Alcedo went along, I would have to have one. Maybe one of the sons in law or their sons will talk me into it a few years from now.


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Post 11 Feb 2021, 09:01 • #31 
Piscator
Joined: 08/10/05
Posts: 19077
Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
Pot-metal die-cast frames were the only way to make these reels for four decades. (Except for benchmade reels from machined barstock like Fin-Nor and Van Staal).
Light weight simply came from being small.
The first plastic frames flopped in the breeze for most of the '90s with a few exceptions (Penn). I had one of the Cardinal plastic Lew's in inshore size before my Penn 4x00SS, and it was a joke that didn't fish a season (I heard redfish at the other end of my line snickering) - even with a half-inch-tall spool, it couldn't get good loaded-line lay.
If you remember some of the graphite-filled plastic fly reels, they were worth entry into the ugly reel toss.

Sometime in there, they began blending a high content of ceramic glasses with thermosetting resins, and came up with some worthy structural plastics.
JW Young was banking on surviving the onslaught of offshore barstock manufacturing with modern molding technology, they made some absolutely great $100 fly reels using it, and no one would buy them.

Even today, you can't quite get the stiffness in high-tech plastics that you can get in thin-wall metal forgings (die-cast is right out), and vice-versa, the metal won't quite get you the light weight of the composite plastic. Whether Shimano's last-generation-plastic frame counts as classic is in the eye of the beholder. Some people aren't going to accept skirted spools as classic. Some aren't going to accept Japan. Others will always look away if it doesn't say Mitchell. But since we always give bonus points for smooth, the Shimano's are going to find their way in. You're also going to find a lot more people today who won't accept any reel that doesn't say Shimano.


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Post 11 Feb 2021, 09:30 • #32 
Master Guide
Joined: 02/04/12
Posts: 705
Location: SE Pa
Quote:
The first plastic frames flopped in the breeze for most of the '90s with a few exceptions
Roger on that Bulldog, I bought a Browning back then (don't know who actually made it) and it was terrible in every way. I had convinced my wife I that needed a new reel and then bought it .... sheezz .... couldn't dare tell her I needed to buy yet another reel. I never used it, just put a new compression washer on my old Shakespeare 2062's (floppy) drag lever and fished it for yet another year.

I used that 2062 so hard for so long that I actually wore the metal axle on the little plastic handle grip 'out-of round' and had to replace it (and the plastic grip)! I sill have that worn axle, I consider wearing it out a badge of honor.


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Post 11 Feb 2021, 20:19 • #33 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 06/23/05
Posts: 4966
Location: US-MT
Seriously fun thread, making me think about gettting out my old spinning stuff....


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Post 12 Feb 2021, 12:38 • #34 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 07/11/14
Posts: 1784
Location: urban Colorado
Sandman wrote:
The photos are a first year 308 pimped with 408 gearing and teflon drag washers...I'd rather not go into battle with a 15lb metal head or 20lb Chinook in open water with one of these, but haven't had issues below that..


my 1974 308 has caught carp and catfish up to 25lb.. also bluefish and garrick to 8lb, fishing in salt estuaries..
once made a mistake and had the small spool on, 100m of 4lb, and hooked a 15lb carp.. it ran the spool empty but somehow was able to turn it and land it after 20min or so..

bought one of the last French-made 308s and was distressed to find they stopped making the Planamatic gearing on those. To me that oscillating line-lay was one of the primary features of the reel.

here's a catfish but not on the 308, this was a Mitchell 320 which isn't a classic.. it worked OK but definitely was a bit downmarket..

Image


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Post 20 Feb 2021, 18:55 • #35 
Guide
Joined: 06/21/20
Posts: 141

Someone asked for DAM reels.






A 330 and 110 side-by-side.



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Post 21 Feb 2021, 11:26 • #36 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 09/05/07
Posts: 2153
Location: West Virginia
The Penn 716 would be my nomination for a classic ultralight.


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Post 21 Feb 2021, 13:17 • #37 
Master Guide
Joined: 07/12/17
Posts: 390
Location: SW B.C.
I just replaced the plastic oscillating slide disc in my father's Mitchell 314 and it will now return to service. It's a fairly smooth, little reel.



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Post 21 Feb 2021, 14:52 • #38 
Master Guide
Joined: 02/04/12
Posts: 705
Location: SE Pa
Quote:
I just replaced the plastic oscillating slide disc in my father's Mitchell 314 and it will now return to service. It's a fairly smooth, little reel.
Thats a nice reel, I have used mine a lot. I'm not sure but it seems to be an upgraded 304 with a nicer handle, bail, drag & etc. It's relatively lightweight, but has a large diameter rotor & spool that really assist with casting distance. I've caught all kinds of fish on mine.


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Post 22 Feb 2021, 20:36 • #39 
Guide
Joined: 06/21/20
Posts: 141
Not sure if it's a 'classic' but it's old. Here's the Airex Apache from the mid-50s.






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Post 13 Mar 2021, 20:52 • #40 
Sport
Joined: 05/22/18
Posts: 25
Location: US-VA
The Penn 716 made an appearance so I thought I'd show my 716Z. We did a lot of small stream fishing, wading in -- tennyshoes and shorts. Didn't put the rod & reel down much so the paint is in good shape.


It seems there were two types of bail configurations; mine is with the streamlined version.


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Post 02 Nov 2021, 09:34 • #41 
New Member
Joined: 10/01/14
Posts: 22
Location: Sweden
Image
Don´t forget LuXor.


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Post 02 Nov 2021, 14:24 • #42 
Sport
Joined: 03/13/18
Posts: 28
Location: boston
Daiwa 500c. Seriously regret selling this reel, it was such a blast to fish and dead simple to service.


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Post 02 Nov 2021, 16:02 • #43 
New Member
Joined: 10/01/14
Posts: 22
Location: Sweden
Image

The 500-sized Daiwa Mini-Mite.


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Post 03 Nov 2021, 19:41 • #44 
Master Guide
Joined: 01/21/12
Posts: 462
Location: US-NY
When I was young I had a shimano al uls, ax 500, TX 500, and spirex 500. The spirex was pretty cool with the double handle. The al uls (I think that is what it was called) was pretty cool too. It was a little bigger than the 500s but had the rear fighting drag if I remember correctly.


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Post 03 Nov 2021, 19:54 • #45 
Master Guide
Joined: 04/12/18
Posts: 457
Remember the tiny Zebco UL reels from the '70s? They had an "underspin" closed face reel that was made to fit an ultralight spinning rod. They were bright metal; miniature versions of the Zebco 33, IIRC. (I had the spincast version of the same reel mounted on a little pistol grip UL baitcasting rod, which I think was also made by Zebco. I had a lot of fun with that rig.)


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Post 04 Nov 2021, 07:18 • #46 
Piscator
Joined: 08/10/05
Posts: 19077
Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
I think the intention of this thread was pretty well played out on the first page,
btw, the triggerspin, which is still made, won't cast with the Zebo UL-1 spincast, and neither compares to a good spinning reel.
Since skirted spools came to dominate this page, anyway, twisted the idea of classic, and I guess they deserve their place, too...
...the only reel that's still made in Micron size is the Tica Cetus, this one pimped a bit with Daiwa SLP, IOS, Avail and Hedgehog parts.



I fished my first one of these in salt XUL niche for 10 years, and retired it for a new Stradic C1000S, but the little reel fished longer and harder than a Penn 4200SS.
The one just above will get some time in this niche, too - next month.
The purpose of counter-balanced and double handles on spinning reels, btw, is to balance the offset weight of the bail and rotor, and return more finesse feel through the handle.


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Post 17 Feb 2022, 21:57 • #47 
New Member
Joined: 10/01/14
Posts: 22
Location: Sweden
Image
Image
Image

The D.A.M. Quick 1001 is quite rare. Made in 1982. I consider it a modern classic (and a danged good reel).


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Post 18 Mar 2022, 08:09 • #48 
New Member
Joined: 08/15/15
Posts: 19
Location: US-VT
Picked this Zebco Cardinal 3 up at a flea market for $5 bucks. Image


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Post 18 Mar 2022, 11:10 • #49 
Piscator
Joined: 08/10/05
Posts: 19077
Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
well that was a steal - you could sell it to Japan for several hundred.

Also, there's a huge array of aftermarket improvements made for that particular reel.


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Post 19 Mar 2022, 10:08 • #50 
Sport
Joined: 05/26/17
Posts: 74
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Wow, that cardinal even has the red spool arbour.


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