I have an apology to make, Colston
I did discover a fly reel in a long untouched storage case. I'd completely forgotten I had a Martin 67A, still loaded with a 7wt DT cream colored line. I had it as a backup for a trip to Montana in '75. Took it out cleaned it and with a little grease and oil it's ready to go. It looks new, and it's never been used. I like the look of the gun metal frame with the silver spool and the sound of the drag and the drag it self is very interesting too.
Respectfully rvreclus

I love it, RVreclus. I have a good stash of Martin 67s, and all get used. When I wanted a new DT7 to use on my 8 1/2' Sceptre, since my other 7 weight reel/line combos were often rigged on other rods, I got me a buff/cream colored AirCel Supreme, and put it on a spare spool for my least used Martin. Good today as it was in '75 when you laid your plan.

I love Martins. Just picked up a Browning Strata 3/4 in almost new condition.

“Classic” USA made reels. Nothing new compares.

Geez, Bulldog, it's really fun to get you stirred up. Look at all those beauties.

took my old Hardy Perfect 3 3/4" to John Shaner of Hardy, at the Denver flyfishing show. He said 50s or maybe early 60s, and rebuked me for the monofilament backing, as he’s seen spools exploded by it. Apparently wound on wet under tension, mono will expand while drying. I guess I never wound on under tension really, always pumping fish in with the rod. The reel's in nice condition with just a few light scratches. I haven't fished it much since it is RHW only, and quite heavy. Perhaps I'll try it on a 9' cane rod. Or, get a steelheading habit, and learn to cast Spey on a two-handed rod. Fantasies ;-)

The gentleman ahead of me had a matched pair of Hardy Lightweights with L-shaped line guards. John said he's been looking for even one of these for his collection for years.. quite rare apparently. The one had a flipped pawl for LHW, which John thought would harm the reel ? and sternly put it back into the original configuration.

Not my pic, from the other site,



Finished a refurb of this reel,
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=62280&hilit=russell
Replaced the screw with one from a $10 Kalamazoo, and installed a new agate in the line guide. I rather botched this after struggling to find a 1" outside diameter brass or agate replacement, got tired of the struggle: used a 25mm agate stripping guide, trimmed and polished off the mounts, but then it was a mm or so too small.



It works fine though.





Probably will switch it to LHW and take my time on the agate search..
While fishing it developed a little movement at one of the reel seat rivets, so have to fix that too. Oy.

Classic spruced up.

odds are, it works the other way, too

Mike, I've been there, about 1984, when I was borderline embarrassed by my glass Fullflex A, downlocking stamped reel seat and Martin 67N, preferring the style of my new Powell and Marryat trout combo.
I added two more niche graphite+disc drag combos Sage/Lamson for salt, and Fisher/Gunnison multipiece combo for warmwater, taking it to the places I was first taking the Fullflex/Martin combo.
All which I still own and fish some, and have more than fondness for the Powell and Fisher - it all does what it was made to do.
Will also say the short Fisher combo in the smallest hill country creeks taught me well to cast and fish fast parabolic rods.

Honestly, I loved fishing the older glass and click-pawl, but they just appeared cheap and out of touch with modern times and not the tools of an educated fly fisher.
Guess I got tired of reading about Fast and faster rods and Low-Start-Up Inertia drags in the fly fishing rags - their measure for everything into the '90s.
Within about a dozen years, I had come full circle - overqualified tackle bored me so much I was about ready to quit fishing.
First blue collar vintage cane brought sporting life back into me, and then acquiring venerable glass because they were inexpensive and worked so incredibly well in the places I took them - they finally ended up making the graphite and disc drags look silly.



Also Mike, I only own a small portion of the tackle in my 50GB of tackle photos - though I did own almost all of it at one time or another. I came up with a system to make my tackle hobbies work for me. .

The rule it takes 50 photos to get a good one still applies.
I have a dedicated fishing camera on a lanyard, and it's all worked into a sweeping process of turn it on, first time the line can be released, maybe quick snap of the rod,
likewise, a quick not-really-framed shot of the fish is part of handling the fish to release it, and takes no more than 2 seconds. The photo will get rotated, framed and cropped later at the computer.
The moments frozen in time are just that - in spite of occasional protests from people without the honed skill, likely (very, probably, certainly) without imagination, and who Really don't get it, no fish were abused in taking these photos.
Nothing is still in the process of taking photos, especially not me and the fish - the only thing still is the photo - everything about taking the photo was dynamic. As soon as the shutter button clicks, the waterproof camera on a lanyard is simply dropped.
Phone cameras are probably the worst for doing this, aside from being slow, there's a good chance you're going to be more concerned about the condition of the phone than the condition of the fish.
Need more to get that 50th photo? Catch more fish.



about the time the fish is swimming away, the camera is turned off and returned to a shirt pocket

the reel photos were taken with a tripod and a different process altogether, hopefully without many wasted electrons, though still framed and cropped at the computer

I'm late, but I don't go anywhere without these and a six weight.

Epic, thanks for all the great pics guys!

me, too