The Golden Age of Spin Casting Fishing Reels--and Green, Red, Silver, and Brass.

Meet the Johnson SABRA: Part 3. Accu-cast Spin-cast Fishing Reels 150 & 160

The Johnson 150 Commander and the Johnson 160 Guide spin-cast reels offered features intended to appeal to serious fishermen. In addition to addressing the competitive claims to accuracy afforded by bait-casting reel manufacturers, a sophisticated  drag system called the Power-Shift appears to have piggy-backed upon the acceptance and popularity of an automobile automatic transmission. This was marketing at its best.

The secondary drag is not active on these models unless the Power-Shift Handle, the crank that is, is shifted backward about a quarter or a fifth of a turn. However, an inherent built in drag is always present. This is apparently what Johnson called the Double-Drag, the Power-Shift, or the Shiftamatic drag at different times in different literature as postured for different markets.

I was casually watching American Idol as I was fiddling with one of these old Johnson 160 Accucast Guide spin-cast reels. The show hasn't held my attention much this season, but I am entertained somewhat by the judges. Keith Urban seems pretty cool. Beatles music was being featured with all the contestants. That is cool. The Aussie likes the Beatles as well as I do apparently. After each song, nearly a dozen in all, Urban would say,

"That's my favorite Beatles song--at least in my top two."

It makes perfect sense to me. A bunch of the Beatles songs are my favorite song--or two--especially when I am in the moment with each particular song. This is also very much the way I find myself reacting to these old Johnson spin-cast reels. I start messing with one model and cleaning it up and really taking note of the clever engineering and the quality in manufacturing, and I remember how it was when such products were making America great. Each model, with a few exceptions, are at the moment that I have them in my hands, my favorites in their own unique ways. Each time I marvel at how well they work and how long they have lasted it seems that I find more little nuances about them to marvel at. These two models, the Johnson 150 and the Johnson 160 are no exceptions.

 

  

The Johnson Accu-cast 160 Guide is the big brother reel of this specialty pair of spin-casters.  The secret that allows these reels to wear the Accu-cast badge is shown under the bell. The standard spool cover nut is usually smaller. With the Accu-cast models, both the nut and line exit hole have been enlarged. The hollow front of the nut is pushed forward when the line-release button is pressed. The hollow is pushed into a coresponding hollow receptacle in the underside of the bell's line-exit hole which applies friction and sqeezes the line firmly.

As with other spin-cast designs, the line is held in place by pressing the line release button initially as usual at the beginning of a cast until the rod is thrust forward and the the button is released to launch the lure into flight. But with this Accu-cast feature, the lure can be stopped in flight by pressing the button a second time. This action again pushes this modified male spool nut forward into the corresponding female receptacle inside the bell--squeezing the line to a stop.

This feature could arguably prevent over-flight into an overhanging branch or too far past an intended strike-zone or target. Such control enables the user to be more accurate with lure placement--thereby nullifying any percieved accuracy advantages offered by bait-casting reels as was being stressed by competitibe reel manufacturers to justify their higher cost.

Accu-cast was clearly intended to overcome this competitive claim that bait-casting reels could be controlled by a user's thumb pressure against the turning spool--and such accuracy could be done without the friction burn sometimes associated with the vintage bait-casting reels fishermen of the same era may have been familiar with.

These two reels are similar except for size. The basic operation is pretty much similar to all other spin-cast reels from this era--with one major, dynamite feature that lets these vintage Johnson reels carry the label of Accu-cast. I think the Accu-cast feature first appeared on some Johnson models in 1964, but I could be way off, as I was still using my Johnson Century and Citation reels at the time. If someone knows the exact dates of manufacture, please let us know via the comments section below.  Documentation for these Johnson models is sparse. My facts and impressions regarding old spin-casting reels are mostly firsthand and anecdotal. Before I further explain the nature of the crowning Accu-cast feature of these reels, let me describe the other features, and then lay a background foundation that explains the significance as to why this Accu-cast feature so interesting. I feel that Johnson had a winner of an idea with the Accu-cast models had they persisted with it in subsequent models. But this is only my hind-site as a user who grew up during these years.

After each song, nearly a dozen in all, Urban would say,

"That's my favorite Beatles song--at least in my top two."

It makes perfect sense to me. A bunch of the Beatles songs are my favorite song--or two--especially when I am in the moment with each particular song. This is also very much the way I find myself reacting to these old Johnson spin-cast reels.

These reels are essentially alike except for size, color, and a few odd cosmetic embellishments from one reel issue to another. The latter has no rhyme to me, but Johnson was adept at calling attention to specific reel models within a specific time period or for an ad campaign. The Johnson 150 Accu-cast Commander and the Johnson 160 Accu-cast Guide models of spin-cast reels. One is beefier than the other, with a bigger bell, higher capacity line spool, and heavier gears. It is physically bigger for bigger fish--much after the tradition begun with the Johnson Century and the Citation models.

There is an extra sliding button underneath the line-release button that is lacking on other Johnson reel models that for the longest time had me stymied. I could not figure out what function it had. I may still not have it right, but I think it just dawned on me that it is simply a means of scotching the line-release button when transporting or fighting a fish to keep the line from being accidentally released. This is not a big thing, but I recall several times when my fishing line has wound up stringing along under-foot behind me while I was carrying a few poles and other gear, from just such an accidental release of the line. It is this kind of subtle functionality that makes me appreciate the fisherman-friendly design characteristics of these old reels.

There is another design feature that I am still not sure I fully understand and appreciate in the absence of any operator manuals or instructions; it is the nature of the drag system, which is always one of the wide variables in old Johnson models. However this drag is radically different from most models. I have seen this drag system referenced in era Johnson reel advertisements as the Johnson Power-Shift Handle Drag.It is a star system that looks much like the star drag found on Garcia Abumatic reels of the same vintage (but which I attribute first used on the earliest Johnson sidewinder style spin-cast reels).

Although bait-casting reels for a time were upstaged by spin-cast reels bringing more sophisticated recreational fishing techniques within the reach of casual weekend freshwater fishermen--the life-cycle of bait-casting was not yet over. Not by a long-shot.

This drag only works in loosely the same way as does the Abumatic drag. The drag is not active on these models unless the Power-Shift Handle, the crank that is, is shifted backward about a quarter or a fifth of a turn. The star knob increases or decreases the drag resistance in the usual manner, but it only works when the handle is back. Curious.  When I am reeling in a fish, I assume that my drag is going to be there in the event of any surges of flight or fight a a fish has. Otherwise, the line might break. This is what a drag is for. Am I wrong? If the crank must be backed up to enact the drag, it would seem to give the fish an opportunity to run or to break the line when the drag was not enacted. To test this theory I went to my pond and promptly caught a nice bass. I reeled the fish in as I always do. I tried to be intuitive about it and not consciously do anything different than I ever do. The fish was not a monster, but he did have a moment of fight. I had the impression, if not a clear recollection, that the drag worked seamlessly as it should have.

So, I think I understand this Power-Shift Drag Handle feature, but I am not sure that the full importance of it has quite sunk in. I feel sure that each feature was an attempt to make each reel the very best product on the market at the time. In some cases such features were specifically added in order to meet the competition in some context-appropriate way. Having been involved somewhat in marketing and sales of unrelated products a good part of my professional life, I find it fascinating to see how sophisticated the marketing of these products was. I also find it interesting to recall what was going on in my own life at the time the reels were being debuted in the market. This helps me understand the marketing context of the time and often explains purpose and reason for why these reels came to be designed as they were.

The term Power-Shift for instance hints heavily of the parallel evolution that was occurring in the automobile world during the mid-sixties. Automatic transmissions were at one time often referred to as Power-Shift transmissions. By the mid-sixties automatic transmission in automobiles had overcome the suspicion that usually accompanies the introduction of any new idea--regardless of how good the idea is. Automatic transmissions in automobiles were by then being reasonably accepted by the driving public--except perhaps for the higher price-tag they represented. This may be exactly what Johnson wanted to convey with this nomenclature.

In the minds of those fishermen consumers being targeted by Johnson with these two reel models, automatic transmissions in automobiles would have been associated with the more deluxe models of cars--the high-end as we have come to call this segment of the market. A conscious attempt was obviously being made to position these reels as a cut above other reels on the market. Whether this calculated attempt paid off or not--is another story. My feeling is that it may have been only moderately successful. I also feel that the value of these obviously planned and positioned features may have been lost on most consumers. After-all, we do not see some of these good ideas repeated on subsequent models of Johnson reels. Or was their purpose to counter bait-cast reel competition? I don't know of any such drag feature ever being used with bait-casting reels.

It may also be that the purpose of these advanced features was served if the purpose was to stave off some of the fishermen from buying the other alternatives of reels then on the market--and to help establish a solid place for the still relatively new spin-cast style of reels in general, and Johnson models in particular. Johnson spin-cast reels enjoyed several decades of huge growth during which millions of reels were sold. I am convinced that each reel model that Johnson introduced was part of a careful multi-faceted game of marketing chess that played out Internationally during those American spin-cast hay-day years.

Although bait-casting reels for a time were upstaged by spin-cast reels bringing more sophisticated recreational fishing techniques within the reach of casual weekend freshwater fishermen--the life-cycle of bait-casting was not yet over. Not by a long-shot. Enabled by new capabilities of mass-production using metal and plastic parts, as well as new designs, traditional reel manufacturers fought hard for the increasing recreational dollars in the hands of post-modern fishermen world-wide.

This magazine advertisement for the Johnson GUIDE 160 Accu-cast spin-cast fishing reel appeals to professional fishermen. I am not sure when it appeared. It stresses both the sophisticated drag and the Accu-cast feature. I ran across this ad after I had written the bulk of this post. It is the first documentation that I have found that substantiates several of my assumptions regarding this reel.

First, it does clarify that the label GUIDE is intended to convey that this reel is of the rugged construction quality and design that an experienced fisherman such as a fishing GUIDE would want. Secondly, it further describes the details of the Double-Drag and claims that it makes it impossible for a fish to break the line. This ad has helped me understand this drag, the operation and use of which has mystified me a bit.

Professional Fishermen is a term used for the first time that I have seen regarding Johnson spin-cast reels. This had to be a references to the Bass-Masters that was begun in 1967 with a Professional tournament at Beaver Lake in Arkansas. The newly formed professional fishing organization was gaining steam and was newsworthy. Who knew what it would become, but the base was being covered by the folks at Johnson reels.

While Bassmaster (B.A.S.S.) was being started and jumpstarting a new kind of Pro fishermen, I was a lanky kid crossing the fence across a little dirt road that passed our house on Salem Lane to go fishing in one of two of Sherman's ponds. I regularly caught bass and bream and catfish using a a variety of mostly hand-me-down fishing gear including Johnson Century and Abumatic and Shakespeare spin-cast reels. I had access to and learned to use fly-rods and reels and two old bait-cast reels.

I learned firsthand about back-lash and burned thumbs from cheap bait-cast reels. They were then antiques, were never expensive, nor much more than free-wheeling spools of heavy braided course black line that would sometimes blister my thumb while learning to tame back-lash and distance using only thumb pressure against the spool. I remember reading about and looking at pictures of those beautiful red Abu Garcia wonders with envy, but  the associated price-tags maight as well have been a million dollars.

I know I must have viewed this very advertisement for the Johnson GUIDE 160 Accu-cast, although I don't recall doing so. I poured over every squre inch of every page of every outdoor magazine of the era I could get my hands on.

 

 

Companies such as famous Sweedish Abu-Garcia and Japanese Diawa not only produced excellent spin-casting reels quickly on a par with Johnson and Zebco and a host of other similar designs--they also produced both true spinning reels of the under-hanging open-face varieties as well as medium to high-end bait-casting reels unlike any reels seen before. Anti-backlash designs--some harnessing the physics or controlled centrifugal force and others using the physics of magnets--began to boast simple back-lash-free operation. Some designs used both centrifugal force and magnets to prevent the crazy over-spin that had previously led to the dreaded birds-nests that could ruin a bait-caster's afternoon. However, the battle was won more by smart marketing campaigns, in my own estimation, than from truly better fishing alternatives to spin-casting reels.

Indeed, bait-casting reels were much improved over their predecessors, but they still required greater skill that came only from practice and a sensitive and well-educated feel of the thumb to quell the tangles of the bird's nest. There was even by then--and is to this day--a likelihood for having at least an occasional mess of knots in the reel even with the most-sophisticated and expensive bait-casting reel designs. They quite simply did still then and do still now--require a good measure more of operator skill to fish without handicap than did even the least expensive spin-cast reels. How bait-cast reels made a gradual but steady come-back over spin-cast reels is largely  a study in how great marketing can turn negatives into positives.

 

Okay, now the crux of the Accucast's unique major difference. the center of the bell is about three times the diameter of most spin-cast reels of this era. It has been made smooth with a big sort of gromet which is not readily apprent as to its purpose until the bell is removed. The underside of the gromet is recessed just inside the outer parameter of th eline exit hole. Still, the purpose is not apparent until you look at the line spool cover. The smallish nut that is usually found holding the spool cover in place has been replaced with a larger nut that is also recessed as a perfect compliment to the inside recess of the bell.

The function of this male-female fit of this over-sized hollow spool cover nut is to apply pressure to the line as the line-release button pushes the spool assembly forward and into the recess of the underside of the bell--right where the line exits the inside of the reel. Walah. This is how Johnson's designers met the bait-casting reel's competition regarding greater accuracy. The idea was to enable the user to push the line-release button a second time after the initial cast had been made. This second depression of the line-release button was intended to slow or even stop cold the forward travel of the lure--just as a bait-casting reel can do.

So in one fell swoop, this Johnson reel design nullified a major competitive advantages of bait-casting reels--all with none of the negatives associated with a free-wheeling spool found on bait-casting reels. The distance advantage of bait-casting reels is mostly marketing BS--given a cost-for-cost reel comparison. This is not so hard to understand without ever even trying one of these two models out in a side-by-side comparison with a comparable weight and size bait-casting reel--to say nothing of comparable cost. A spin-cast reel is sometimes called a closed-face spinning reel by old-timers although you seldom hear this label anymore. It is actually a more accurate label because the action principle that allows a spin-cast reel to work is just like a true spinning reel--also sometimes called an open-face spinning reel.

I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you.

An open-face spinning reel has virtually no friction resistance to limit its reach even when using a very light lure. In conjunction with a long limber-action spinning rod, the forward motion of the cast propels even light-weight lures very long distances because the line is simply unwinding from the spool with hardly any restrictive friction from what little it touches the edges of the spool. This same principle is used with a spin-cast reel with only slightly more resistance as the line touches the center of the line exit-hole in the reel bell.

Furthermore, an open-face spinning reel does not do so well with heavier lures, due to the delicate operation of the method of release and also due to the line's tendency for uncontrollability because of no method for constraining the target of the line's exit. A spin-cast reel's bell itself with the line-exit hole solves this problem. The net result is that a spin-cast reel can handle a much wider range of lure weights with no adjustment or hassles.

The addition of the Johnson Accu-cast feature to these models of spin-cast reels only enhances the capability of the spin-cast reel. I can see no downside to this feature. The drawback is that it doesn't work very well intuitively--or did not for me.  I am sure I could get use to it.  The only time I really might use such a feature is if I see that I am going to wind up on the bank or in a tree. When I use a spin-casting reel, I intuitively grab the line with my non-casting hand where it exits the reel and squeeze it against the rod. So it is not like there are no alternatives with a spin-cast reel. This feature certainly works as intuitively as does a modern bait-casting flipping switch. And it requires very little practice. So why was this feature not a commercial success?

Again, I don't know for sure why the Johnson Accu-cast feature was not a commercial success. But I have my ideas regarding this. I think the users of spin-cast reels typically did not see the need for this feature. There were not looking for this level of sophistication. Since the advantage of the bait-casting reel's supposed greater accuracy was largely fluff--thought up by marketing people after-the-fact to justify the extra cost required to build a comparably performing bait-casting reel. It did not really matter to the fishermen who wound up wanting the easy-to-use spin-casting reel. The manufacturers of the main bait-casting reels of the era were already beginning to win the reel wars when it came to more experienced and serious anglers. These anglers simply did not want to identify with stereo-typical spin-cast reel user who included inexperienced casual fishermen, kids, girls, and women. It was becoming more macho to use bait-casting and/or spinning reels. No one wanted a sissy-reel no matter how well it worked.

So in one fell swoop, this Johnson reel design nullified a major competitive advantages of bait-casting reels--all with none of the negatives associated with a free-wheeling spool found on bait-casting reels.

Bait-cast fishermen's irrational preference for lousier reel designs probably also had roots in savvy old-timers' resistance to change after a lifetime of earning their wings using bait-casting reels, spinning reels, and fly-reels. But this unfounded or at least shallow basis was seized upon by the bait-casting reel manufacturers who by-the-way also had excellent spin-cast reels to offer. They did not feel that they could win the reel wars on the spin-cast reel inventors turf, but they could ride the spin-cast wave with their own models while simultaneously improving their more expensive bait-casting reels. There also may have been inherent preferences for using bait-casting reels for these old-time main-stay reel manufacturers who had been around much longer than the upstart inventor-manufacturers of the spin-cast reels. this could have been for all the same reasons previously cited for old-timer fishermen preferred bait-casting reels.

I also believe that ZEBCO's efforts specifically targeting the low-end  of the market with their cheap (and in my estimation, inferior) spin-cast reels further muddied waters when it came to serious fishermen preferring spin-cast reels. This was likely the same phenomenon that causes me to have an irrational disdain for ZEBCO reels. Johnson themselves tried to distance and differentiate themselves from ZEBCO. And after ZEBCO had trashed the perception of all spin-cast reels as being cheap and unreliable and the kind of reels that kids, girls, and women used--and made a gazillion dollars in the process--they then distance themselves from their own brand and got into the bait-casting and open-faced spinning reel market with their own quality reel product offerings.

Most rank-and-file fisherman cannot tell you that Quantum bait-casting reels are ZEBCO products. This is no accident. ZEBCO has kept this new brand identity entirely separate from their spin-cast reel fame. The quantum brand is regarded as a decent quality bait-casting reel. They are certainly players in the bait-casting reel market. This whole story is a fascinating study in human nature, consumer preference, brand identity, and both good and bad marketing. this is a case where very literally, the market has driven inferior designs ideas over superior designs. I am saying the spin-cast reel was initially and always has been the best value, offering the most versatility and ease of operation, greater reliability, and fishing time productivity--for less money than any other design. Of course spin-cast reels are still being produced sold and used--but their hay-day as used by serious fishermen is now past and their future evolution has probably been stunted because of inaccurate consumer demand.

I ran across this site which offers an excellent history of fishing reels in brief. It is a good quick reference.

http://www.fishingmuseum.org.uk/reels_overview.html

 

 

 

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A Tribute to My Dad Regarding his Preference for Spin-cast Reels

I have dedicated this weblog to my next oldest brother, who I had hoped would contribute greatly to this blog. He was a big influence on me. May I here interject a tribute post to my own dad's wisdom and practicality as it applies to spin-cast reels. Dad was a man's man. There was no question regarding his macho. He was tough as nails. I doubt that it never entered his mind to be put off by such nonsense as how it might appear that he used spin-cast reels to do most of his fishing after Johnson changed the fishing world with their designs.

Dad grew up fishing with whatever tackle was available--including his hands. Dad could hog or noodle with the best of them. He knew how to make his own fishing nets as was passed to him. He ran trot-lines regularly on the Arkansas River. He hunted, and fished, and gigged frogs. He trapped in his younger days. Dad was typically pretty quiet, owing to a condition of his vocal chords that he developed about the time I was born that made it an effort for him to speak. His voice was raspy when he did speak. It required some throat clearing before he could spoke, which served as an early-warning system for everyone to hush and listen. So when he did speak, Dad usually had something worth listening to.

The way my father taught me to fish was very seldom by actively teaching, although I know that he consciously provided examples for the purpose of observing, and thereby learning. he taught by example. Sometimes I think his impatience to get on with things out-stripped his desire to teach by example. I find that I am inclined to be this way at times in my older years. But the mere proximity to such a passion for all things outdoors that was exhibited by my Dad and my older siblings counted for a lot. The availability of good fishing equipment and opportunities afforded by the exotic places we lived when I was growing up was also Dad's indirect hand in my education regarding the recreational outdoors.

Fish and game were vital parts of my father's family's diet when he was growing up during the Great Depression. It was consequently a good part of our family's chosen diet when I was growing up. Although Dad was a consummate outdoorsman and adventurer who loved the recreational aspects of hunting and fishing--to him fishing was mostly about catching fish.

Dad could handle a fly-rod or spinning rod or bait-cast rig with proficiency. That he had fairly-well settled on early vintage Johnson and Abu Garcia spin-cast reels for virtually all of his fishing pursuits for the last half of his life--which incidentally was filled with crazy-wonderful fishing all over the Arctic and the Bush of Alaska as well as the lower forty-eight--say much for the true utility of those quality spin-cast reels. I was the baby of the family which had both its drawbacks and its perks. This family position is also largely to blame for my exuberance regarding these old spin-cast  reels.

Me? I love fishing for the sport. I enjoy eating. I love spin-cast reels for their ingenuity, utility, and historicity. But I realize that my Dad's preferences and conclusions by his middle-age when I came along shaped a lot of my preferences. Still, they were reasoned conclusions and preferences--based on the practicalities of catching fish. I have owned and used all the major brands and styles of modern fishing equipment in my lifetime. I have scratched all the covetous itches that I developed as a kid long ago regarding fishing equipment, and for that matter, fishing experiences. I am experienced in my own right by this late date and past my prime, but I will forever regard my Dad as my original mentor and my superior in most ways including fishing knowledge and skills.

More thoughts about Abu Garcia and Johnson Spin-cast Design Sharing

I have always suspected a design-sharing arrangement between Johnson and Abu Garcia, although I have found no admission or documentation of such. I have beat this drum before in other posts.

[ http://www.notesandnods.typepad.com/the_golden_age_of_spin_ca/fishing/ ] .

But I am beating it some more now. I am made to believe that my father had read of such an arrangement around 1960. Very early, when a need came for my him to purchase substitutes for our Johnson Century reels that were delayed in transit, Dad immediately seemed aware that the Abu Garcia reels were very similar. Our purchase of several Abumatics confirmed this in my own estimation. I also was there to observe simultaneous introduction of new and radically different spin-cast reel designs by both companies that used the same design ideas.

An example of this is seen in the above picture. The metal frame of the body was suddenly changed to molded Nylon construction. This plastic back portion of the frame held all the innards and crank/drag assembly in place by snugging up and screwing onto the grooves of the bell. This design was used pretty much thereafter for all new designs by these companies. I personally never liked it as well for the simple reason that when the body was unscrewed from the bell, the whole reel easily collapsed and was hard to line up and put back together. Parts could potentially lost while in the field.

Further fodder to support this cullusionary design theory even exists today. Johnson as a company is long-gone--as are most of the old time reel manufacturers. They went the way of modern global coorporations. Surviving Johnson reel designs have been being made in Japan and China for decades now, whether for Johnson or by the heirs-apparent of the manufacturing rights . I have no idea who has been renewing the old Johnson reel patents.

Obviously, someone owns and controls the use of these patents or they would be being copied helter-skelter and used without discrimination by numerous companies. Johnson's manufacturing rights seem to have been legally retained by those corporate entities that purchased the defunct Johnson assets. Berkley, another old-time fishing reel manufacturer, aquired the assets of Johnson during the late eighties. Subsequent aquistions and mergers brought other once competing reel companies together under the same corporte umbrella. Famous Sweedish Abu Garcia reels was among those companies merged under the name of Pure Fishing, Inc. This entity is now part of the global Jarden Corporation with their home office in New York.

I have recently been seeing updated designs named and closely patterned after the famous Johnson Century reel that started it all. One was a Berkley product shown here. The other carries a Abu Garcia Johnson Century label. These are of course made in China, which during the production and unrecedented success of the original that epidomized the powoer of  American Capitalism, was undergoing the horrors of the so-called Communist Cultural Revolution behind the Bamboo Curtain in what may have been the largest mass genocide in the history of mankind perpetrated against the educated and wealthier classes of Chinese--many for espousing Capitalism. How times change.

The photographs are of virtually the same design except for the handle and the colors. Both Berkley and Abu Garcia are now owned by Jarden Corp. I have not handled one of these reels personally. I feel sure that these are good reels, although they are not likely on a par with the original metal Johnson Century reels, which are still reeling good as new well over a half century after they were made. Anyway, someone still living must know what the arrangement was between those original venerable reel manufacturers Abu Garcia and Johnson that allowed their spin-cast reels to be so similar even back then.

Regardless of the answer to this historical question, back on topic, these pictures of the disaseembly of the Johnson Guide 160 Accu-cast above and below show the mechanics of the mysterious white sliding button located under the line-release button. The undercover shots disclose that this devise apparently is merely a lock to prevent the unintentional release and unwinding of the line.

Meet the Johnson SABRA Family of Vintage Spin-cast Reels: Part 1

Getting there was only part of the fun. Using the Johnson 160 Guide Accu-cast adds to the fun. But watching the first dragonfly of the season leave its nymph shell on the stem behind as it lets its wings dry in the sun bodes a good omen for the coming season. Its good.

What's in a Name? And a Number.

Johnson Nomenclature

This ad is said to have appeared in an outdoor magazine in 1965. Although it features the Johnson Model 710 spin-cast reel, and as it says, its big brother, the SABRA, the description of what is here called the Shiftamatic is similar to what is referred to as the Power-Shift in literature advertising the Model 150 and 160 Accu-cast models. The verbiage in this ad provides a sense of some of the competitive battles being fought in the reel-wars during this time. 'Backlash is unheard of ' is an important theme aimed directly at bait-casting reels. I hope someone will clarify the chronology of the line-up. I believe these models over-lapped the manufacturer of the 150 and 160 models, but they did not have the Accu-cast feature. Otherwise these reels appear the same.

The ad also raises questions: Colloquial labels are used that may have meant something to Minnesota anglers that are lost on others. The name SABRA means nothing to me although the SABRA model reel was the flagship reel offered by Johnson during this era.

So what does the term SABRA mean? It is not a very common word. It is likely of Hebrew or Jewish or Israeli origin. In Hebrew it is the name of a tough and hardy desert cactus of the same family that Americans know as Prickly Pear. The name came to be a nickname to refere to the new breed of Israeli-born Jews who were idealized in popular Israeli culture between the thirties and seventies. This new generation of Jews were painted out to be the antithesis of the Ghetto Jews who were felt to have allowed their own domination and eradication by Hitler.

Sabra were raised by the kibbutz. They were characterized as being both urban as well as capable of surviving the harsh desert extremes and mixing comfortably with the nomadic Bedoins--sometimes thought to be the remnats of ancient Jews. Sabra were often stereo-typed as versatile, inventive, tough, and native Supermen and Superwomen. 

During the early to mid-sixties with a crescendo during the time shortly after the Famous Six Days War, the term Sabra--surrounding the announcement and production of the Johnson SABRA spin-cast reel--the term and the given name SABRA reached a popular peak. Although it was mostly still confined to Jewish circles, SABRA also came into usage somewhat in general American English slang as being synonomous with such words as new, tough, versatile, and unconquerable. It is fairly obvious from the timing, that this is the meaning SABRA intended as it was applied to the Johnson 710spin-cast reel.

Many consider the SABRA model, which is the same as the GUIDE model less the Accu-cast feature, to be Johnson's crowning spin-cast reel achievement.  While this ad appears directed at beginning fishermen, the 150 and 160 ads are aimed at more experienced fishermen. The reels are virtually the same.

The Automatic Transmission of Fishing Reels

A Sophisticated Double-Drag System

The Johnson SABRA Family of spin-cast reels employed perhaps the most intricate and sophisticated drag system of any fishing reels ever, certainlyof any spin-cast reels.

Johnson used numbers as well as names for their reels. For instance, several reels carried the name Laker model. Of course anyonw who knows Johnson reels recognizes the name Johnson Century 100 and the name Johnson Citation 110 models as the reels that started the spin-cast explosion during the last half of the fifties overlapping the first half of the sixties. This may be one of the first modern examples of setting expectations for products by thematic names as a marketing mthod. Lets face it, for most people a name is more mentally graphic than a mere model number. Of course it what was begun with the Johnson Century and Citation names, became a benchmark for naming Johnson Reels. I get the Johnson Century 100 naming scheme.

The numbers actually did not start here. The numbers began with the earlier, less successful, side-mount Johnson spin-cast reels beginning with 10, then 20, 30, 40 and so on until they reached 80, the last model of the side-mount reels. It must have been mere hap-stance that the revolutionary design that most resembled the spin-cast reels that became popular happened to follow the sequence 1ith 100. It was a bit of marketing genius that made the association with the word Century and the new breed of reels was born. Century could easily imply that it was the greatest invention in a century, or that it would last for a century. Regardless of how planned and solid the name sounded, it was largely owed to chance. But isn't this how many wonderful things come to be? Chance meets action.

Citation was another great C-word that denotes notice and accolades. I can just imagine the brain-storming sessions with crative minds that came up with these names. Once set in motion, it must ahve been an effort in one-ups-manship to name subsequent reel models. I can only assume the Laker name refers to the Great Lakes. Of course this is probably derived from the colloquial terminology of those who worked, lived, and fished near the home base of Johnson reels.

In the locales syrrounding the location of the Johnson reel plant in Mancata, Minnesota, the Laker  reference naturally means the biggest and the toughest--both as it refers to the Lakes themselves and the size and species of the fish that live therein. Freshwater sturgeons are the biggest fresh water fish found in North America. Naturally, a bigger and tougher reel would be thought necessary to catch the big fish of the Great Lakes. The reference may have been lost on anglers outside of the immediate influence of the Great Lakes. But no matter. It was a big name to accompany and further define the number that had been assigned to it.

Bait-cast fishermen's irrational preference for inferior reel designs probably also had roots in savvy old-timers' resistance to change after a lifetime of earning their wings using bait-casting reels, spinning reels, and fly-reels

 The Accucast 160 that I have in front of me is called the GUIDE. It is a SABRA with the Accu-Cast feature added. It was obviously positioned to appeal to experienced fishermen--especially the freshly budded Professional Bass Fishermen as per the B.A.S.S. and the Bassmaster. This one is red and on its side in big red capital letters above the much smaller Model 160 GUIDE appears. I can also only assume the meaning of this title. Could it mean that it is so tough and excellent that it is what a guide would use? Or does it more imply that it is so easy to use that the reel itself  becomes the user's fishing guide?

You choose. But this particular reel also has a bright silver star drag knob on the outside of the crank. (Most other 160 models have a black star knob. The 150 Commander has a knurled drag knob instead of the star knob.) The bell is made of a very light aluminum that I think is cast aluminum. It may be an early example of injection molding manufacturing process. The rear body is made of a plastic that I bet is nylon. Nylon 66 is among the earliest and best plastics to be widely used in consumer products. It has a good track record of endurance.

Nylon 66 has proven over time to be is virtually indestructible material within the bounds of normal use. Exposure to certain chemicals or to prolonged sun-light can discolor and deteriorate it. But for the most part, it has poven itslef over time to wear as well or better than most metals. However, at the time of the reel's manufacture, Nylon was still regarded with a little suspicion by many consumers as being a cheap, as in inferior, substitute for metals--in particular steel. It probably was cheaper, but also very durable. The line release button is wider than the earlier Johnson reel models. It is made of white plastic and is recessed to hold a big man thumb. This button also has a black circular target emblazoned on it--driving home the idea of accuracy.

But did you notice that the SABRA is one model of Johnson reel that carried only a name, with no model number. What was us with that. Again, I can only guess. I believe that the SABRA was intended to be the mother of all spin-cast reel. The spin-cast reel to end all spin-cast reels. The apex of spin-cast design and engineering wonders. The flag-ship reel upon which all of Johnsons hopes and aims for winning the reel wars was bet. And it truly may have been the most rugged and best spin-cast reel ever made. The SABRA design was certainly all that. But the 160 GUIDE was all that plus more!

This 160 GUIDE is an attractive reel. I don't know why this reel was not a bigger commercial success. It's production years seems to indicate that it was experimental--overlapping several other successful models. It must not have met the expectations Johnson had for it. It may have been the consumer doubt regarding plastics. I like this reel--now--after the fact. I only vaguely recall seeing the ads in outdoor magazines at the time. I don't remember actually seeing one for real until long after it was discontinued. But I do recall the suspicion regarding plastics in general during this time, and specifically as used with some other spin-cast reels.

Although ZEBCO produced their basic reel models constructed of metal, they quickly adopted platics as their material of choice in an apparent cost-saving measure. ZEBCO's attempt to corner the low-end of the spin-cast market was very successful. They have sold an estimated hunnard-bazzzzzillion-trazillion-mazillion-hunnard-hunnard-trazillion reels--as some of my grandkids might proclaim--in my lifetime. I have a vintage metal ZEBCO 33 that I once got in a box of vintage reels. I can find no fault with it, but I still nurse irrational disdain for this and all such ZEBCO reels. Just sayin. This is an example of the power of early advertsing and early opinions of old-timers shaping a lifelong predjudice toward spin-cast reels. In my case, Johnson's models dodged the bullet that some of us passed on to ZEBCO's models. What kid growing up in the fifties and sixties wanted a cheap toy plastic fishing reel aimed at girls, women, and sissies! Not me.

There is one other curious design difference in the Johnson GUIDE Accu-cast 160 spin-cast reel and the smaller 150 Commander version of the model 710. Did you get that? Yep, just as the SABRA has no associated model number, the model 710 has no associated thematic name. And where did the chrobology go. Whaaaa? 710? What was the significance of this model number? And woo-hoo! The Guide 160 Accu-cast has three labels as did the 150 Commander Accu-cast. These guys were having too much fun mixing it up while naming these reels. Is there rhyme to the reason? You got me.

Anyway, these two models have that previously mentioned little sliding button on the plastic body main, just under the line-release button. The first such reel I ever encountered had the numbers worn off and painted over and the button was rough and not fully functional. Even after examining and using pristine examples of models of Johnson reels that utilized this mysterious button--ones that had clearly imprinted labels and models emblazoned on them--I am not sure that this feature was ever very useful. I am not even sure that it was ever even very functional. I am not even sure that it ever worked much at all. It may have been one of those good ideas that didn't work. Or, just as possibly, I don't know, nor never knew or understood exactly what this feature was intended to do. I hope someone will edify me. [Note I wrote this paragraph before I added the paragraph above about the use of this button dawning on me. However, since this dawning is only speculation, I am letting this earlier observation stand.]

 

As noted in the earlier paragraph, the sliding plastic button located just under the line-release can be slid up as if to scotch the line release from being pushed down--unless a greater pressure than one would normally expect--is applied. Call me stupid--but I just cannot determine the possible utility for such a button. [Now I have thought of a possibility, to lock the line-release from accidental release. Simple. Correct? I dunno. More later.]

How to Untangle a Bait-cast Reel

The first few paragraphs have been repeated from a previous post in order to provide context as to how the bait-cast ree impacted the success and failures of the popular vintage spin-cast reels with which they competed during the early years of spin-cast history.

Companies such as famous Sweedish Abu-Garcia and Japanese Diawa not only produced excellent spin-casting reels quickly on a par with Johnson and Zebco and a host of other similar designs--they also produced both true spinning reels of the under-hanging open-face varieties as well as medium to high-end bait-casting reels unlike any reels seen before. Anti-backlash designs--some harnessing the physics or controlled centrifugal force and others using the physics of magnets--began to boast simple back-lash-free operation. Some designs used both centrifugal force and magnets to prevent the crazy over-spin that had previously led to the dreaded birds-nests that could ruin a bait-caster's afternoon. However, the battle was won more by smart marketing campaigns, in my own estimation, than from truly better fishing alternatives to spin-casting reels.

Indeed, bait-casting reels were much improved over their predecessors, but they still required greater skill that came only from practice and a sensitive and well-educated feel of the thumb to quell the tangles of the bird's nest. There was even by then--and is to this day--a likelihood for having at least an occasional mess of knots in the reel even with the most-sophisticated and expensive bait-casting reel designs. They quite simply did still then and do still now--require a good measure more of operator skill to fish without handicap than did even the least expensive spin-cast reels. How bait-cast reels made a gradual but steady come-back over spin-cast reels is largely  a study in how great marketing can turn negatives into positives.

 

Now vintage relics themselves, Garcia bait-cast reels similar to the one pictured above made following the general pattern of the famous Garcia Ambassadeur 500 series proliferated and evolved during the same years as did Johnson's Spin-cast reels. Advertisements for both types of reels are the best documentation of the competitive drama that unfolded between these fishing reel types during the reel wars. These bait-castin g reels are wonderful reels. They are not are not as foolproof to use as spin-cast reels.

There had always been a sense of pride that went with knowing how to fish with bait-casting reels. It requires skill to. The REAL fishermen--the guys who had paid their dues with a lifetime of bait-casting birds-nests and blistered thumbs (from controlling the rapidly careening spool of fishing line being driven by a big old plug or a treble-hook and a gob of blood-bait with thumb tension)--were not yet ready to concede their skills as outmoded. There was a kind of not altogether undeserved label of sissy fishing reels that developed regarding spin-casting reels. After-all, with five minutes of instruction, any child old enough to have basic major limb control--heater little boys, or girls and women--could be out casting well-seasoned macho bait-casting fishermen using a Johnson Century or comparable spin-casting reel. It didn't seem quite fair.

Since I Have this Hard-earned Experience, I am Sharing it with Others. No-one should ever have to Endure this Again.

This is probably the most that I will ever refer to bait-casting reels in this weblog. I should therefore take opportunity to add my take and my experience upon how to deal with the inevitable back-lashed bird's nest condition so often wrought by their use. Whether one can recover from a backlash situation depends in large measure on the amount of time and patience one cares to devote to the problem. How much money you are willing to justify losing is also a factor. If I was a professional bass tournament fishermen in competition, which I will never be, I would deal with a backlash by picking up the favorite similar reel and continuing without missing more than a beat or two. I have certainly done this.

Short of that, I might whip out my razor sharp knife and cut the back-lashed bird's nest into a bunch of pieces, which will usually allow it to be quickly stripped off and retied onto a lure onto good line underneath the tangled part. I have also done this. There is a reason that spools usually hold way more line than is necessary to make even the longest casts possible. this is reality. Using this remedy be careful not to pick the good portion of line up while overlooking an underlying cut in the line that may not be readily evident. You can usually spot these by taking a very close and careful look and by discarding enough line ot make sure that you are past all of these cuts.

Another remedy, which makes perfect sense, but which I have never seemed to have the forethought to try, is to have ready alternate spare reel spools that are pre-threaded with line. It may be that a tangled spool can be freed sufficiently to remove it entirely from the frame and replace it with another ready one. It has been my experience that the tangles exceed the clearance or interfere with the removal of the reel without also cutting a bunch of line. I have sometimes wound up removing a spool in order to remove the tangle. but not without a lot of line slashing to get to that point. If I had another ready spool full of good line, it might make sense at that juncture to replace the other one. I can't really see that it would, but it might.

I am sometimes accused of being stubborn. I prefer to call it doggedness. Whatever it is, I have sometimes, more often when in was young and had fewer alternative resources and options, chosen to untangle and thereby salvage, if not all, at least some of my fishing line. My success at this varied, but I am glad that I have this experience however unpleasant and time-consuming it may have been at the time. I must have seen no good alternatives. But in the process I discovered that if one holds his temper and calmly approaches the problem at hand rationally and with the knowledge that at least some of these bird's nests are not terminal. they can be untangled fairly quickly. Even now after more than a half century of fishing experience, I experience occasional birds nests when using bait-casting reels. This may be in part because I am constantly fiddling with, fixing, and trying different reels. But regardless of why it happens, I confess that it does.

This is why I now know how to deal with my back-lashed lines in bait-casting reels. the minute the backlash occurs, I try to answer the question as to why--with a mind of not repeating the mistake or malfunction with that reel subsequently. This done, I then quickly assess the degree of the problem.

First:

If it is just a small backlash, then my odds of a quick recovery are enhanced, though not a hundred-percent.  I will usually decide at this point to test how badly the tangle really is. This mostly depend upon how tight the wrap has become. If I have not tried to reel it in, thereby tightening the wrap, the wrap can often be undone fairly easily by making sure that the spool is released to spin freely and then gently pulling at wads of the tangled wrap to loosen it. I then may reverse the turn of the spool, free-wheeling it by hand in reverse in an effort to uncover and thereby release the main point of tangle.

If that Doesn't Work then Try this.

This works probably a third of the time. If it does not fix the tangle or only partially fixes it, I will then lightly pull the line forward on the lure side of the tangle very lightly--with increasing tension to see if I can pull the tangle out from the now-loosened coil of line. Using these two maneuvers alternately will free the backlash entirely about two-thirds of the time within five minutes or sometimes much less. I begin to get antsy at this point and will usually resort to more radical measures. But as a kid, I am sure that I sat down at the fishing bank and used up most for my fishing time by meticulously untangling the line. If you do this, our success ultimately depends upon your ability to loosen the upper wraps so that you can eventually reach the one or more main binds that originally started the whole mess. My guess is that if you cannot do this within fifteen minutes you may never be able to do it. Sometimes, without any help on your part, the back-lashed line underneath gets way too tight and ties the hardest and most complex hard knots sufficient to tiny any sailor--even lifers. But sometimes your effort first, helps you understand the mess for dealing with the problem the next time and second, salvages at least some of your fishing line--if this priority exceeds the value of your lost fishing time.

This is probably the most that I will ever refer to bait-casting reels in this weblog. I should therefore take opportunity to add my take and my experience upon how to deal with the inevitable back-lashed bird's nest condition so often wrought by their use.

 

  These images remind me of the two old vintage bait-cast reels that I learned to cast on. It is a wonder that I bothered to learn at all, given the array of excellent spin-cast reels I had at my disposal. I think I learned as a requirement for the Boy Scout Fishing Merit Badge on my way to becoming an Eagle Scout. As I recall, the skill grew on me as does any skill. But I must have encountered a thousand tangles while learning--mostly in my backyard with different size bell-sinkers as practice weights.

I had an old tire set up as a target. Eventually I took the rig to nearby ponds and lakes and used them to catch fish. By then, the mid-sixties, it was rare for anyone of my age to know how to use such antiquated bait-cast reels with much skill. I dreamed of owning a nice shiny red Garcia Ambassadeur 5000 or 6000. 

After I went into the Navy, I never picked up another bait-cast reel for at least a couple of decades. I don't know whatever happened to my old bait-cast reels, but I never missed them. When I did eventually take a renewed interest in bait-cast reels they had evolved into another dimension. I had heard how much easier they had become to use. But when I eventually got one, I still found the skills I had learned by thumbing those old reels as a kid very useful. Old spin-cast reels like the Johnson's and Abu Garcia's still showed much greater versatility and utility then and now.

Is it Worth Your Time?

In the final analysis, whether you should spend the time untangling or fishing is up to you. But as a general gem of hard-won wisdom, I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you. I use to believe that such incidents decreased with experience. Then age-related handicaps such as deceased vision quality, decreased manual dexterity and feeling in the fingers and hands and arms, increased hand and finger tremors, and generally decreased endurance--all which are taken for granted in your youth--can contribute to a decreased fishing enjoyment and increased incidence of events that work against keeping your hook in front of fish--such as bait-casting tangles and terminal bird's nests. On the other-hand, many of these unpleasant events may well be avoided by using spin-casting reels. Just saying.

The 160 Johnson GUIDE Accu-cast Reel was Johnson's Best Attempt to Overcome all of the Bait-cast Competitive Arguments

 Okay, now the crux of the Accu-cast's unique major difference. The center of the bell is about three times the diameter of most spin-cast reels of this era. It has been made smooth with a big sort of grommet which is not readily apparent as to its purpose until the bell is removed. The underside of the grommet is recessed just inside the outer parameter of the line exit hole. Still, the purpose is not apparent until you look at the line spool cover. The smallish nut that is usually found holding the spool cover in place has been replaced with a larger nut that is also recessed as a perfect compliment to the inside recess of the bell.

Several Spin-cast Reels Offer the Ability to Stop Your Lure in Mid-Flight

The function of this male-female fit of this over-sized hollow spool cover nut is to apply pressure to the line as the line-release button pushes the spool assembly forward and into the recess of the underside of the bell--right where the line exits the inside of the reel. Walah. This is how Johnson's designers met the bait-casting reel's competition regarding greater accuracy. The idea was to enable the user to push the line-release button a second time after the initial cast had been made. This second depression of the line-release button was intended to slow or even stop cold the forward travel of the lure--just as a bait-casting reel can do.

So in one fell swoop, this Johnson reel design nullified a major competitive advantages of bait-casting reels--all with none of the negatives associated with a free-wheeling spool found on bait-casting reels. The distance advantage of bait-casting reels is mostly marketing BS--given a cost-for-cost reel comparison. This is not so hard to understand without ever even trying one of these two models out in a side-by-side comparison with a comparable weight and size bait-casting reel--to say nothing of comparable cost. A spin-cast reel is sometimes called a closed-face spinning reel by old-timers although you seldom hear this label anymore. It is actually a more accurate label because the action principle that allows a spin-cast reel to work is just like a true spinning reel--also sometimes called an open-face spinning reel.

I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you.

An open-face spinning reel has virtually no friction resistance to limit its reach even when using a very light lure. In conjunction with a long limber-action spinning rod, the forward motion of the cast propels even light-weight lures very long distances because the line is simply unwinding from the spool with hardly any restrictive friction from what little it touches the edges of the spool. This same principle is used with a spin-cast reel with only slightly more resistance as the line touches the center of the line exit-hole in the reel bell.

Furthermore, an open-face spinning reel does not do so well with heavier lures, due to the delicate operation of the method of release and also due to the line's tendency for uncontrollability because of no method for constraining the target of the line's exit. A spin-cast reel's bell itself with the line-exit hole solves this problem. The net result is that a spin-cast reel can handle a much wider range of lure weights with no adjustment or hassles.

The addition of the Johnson Accu-cast feature to these models of spin-cast reels only enhances the capability of the spin-cast reel. I can see no downside to this feature. The drawback is that it doesn't work very well intuitively--or did not for me.  I am sure I could get use to it.  The only time I really might use such a feature is if I see that I am going to wind up on the bank or in a tree. When I use a spin-casting reel, I intuitively grab the line with my non-casting hand where it exits the reel and squeeze it against the rod. So it is not like there are no alternatives with a spin-cast reel. This feature certainly works as intuitively as does a modern bait-casting flipping switch. And it requires very little practice. So why was this feature not a commercial success?

Some Current Production Diawa Spin-cast Reels Still Offer the Feature that Johnson Pioneered as the Accu-cast Features.

What is a Gorge Hook?

I made a reference to the ancient use of a gorge hook by primitive fishermen. A couple of readers wanted to know more about this, so here it is. It may be good to know some day.

A gorge-hook as used by primitive fishermen, is not a hook at all, in the sense of having a crook or hook and barb on one end. Rather, it is a straight piece of stick or bone that has been sharpened on both ends and notched a bit in the middle where a fishing line can be securely tied without it slipping fro or to under pressure. The stick is then cocked up to where it is straight with the fishing line. The bait is then secured around it, holding it just so. When a fish takes the bait and gulps the straight gorge-hook along with it and starts her run--the sharpened ends of the stick straighten out and presumably gorges and sticks into the fish's throat and is caught. These can be quite effective and is worthy of knowing for survival purposes.

I made up  few of these for a survival video I am doing. Although I have never caught a fish with one of these, I have every confidence that I can and will. They are said to be very effective using worms or cut-bait or blood-bait or dough balls for drum, and catfish, although I have not doubt that game-fish can also be taken with them. Before trying these, check their legality in your jurisdiction. I will try them in my pond. Whenever I do so, I will report my results here and show the fish and how the fish is caught. One disadvantage I see to using these is they may do more damage to fish that may pull loose or for-catch-and release for them to survive.

Of course in a survival situation this will be of little concern. In a survival situation, a fishing line may be braided out of unraveled fabric or fashioned from the fibers found in the stems and leaves of cattail reeds, green elm bark and other plants that lend themselves to making cordage. I plan to show this too in a future update to this post or a seperate post.

This is not the kind of cattail that I am referring to for cordage--unless you are ready for a scrap.

 

Part Three: Meet the Johnson SABRA Family

Part Two: Meet the Johnson Sabra Family

A Historic Perspective on Spin-casting Reels versus Bait-casting & Spinning Reels

Companies such as famous Sweedish Abu-Garcia and Japanese Diawa not only produced excellent spin-casting reels quickly on a par with Johnson and Zebco and a host of other similar designs--they also produced both true spinning reels of the under-hanging open-face varieties as well as medium to high-end bait-casting reels unlike any reels seen before. Anti-backlash designs--some harnessing the physics or controlled centrifugal force and others using the physics of magnets--began to boast simple back-lash-free operation. Some designs used both centrifugal force and magnets to prevent the crazy over-spin that had previously led to the dreaded birds-nests that could ruin a bait-caster's afternoon. However, the battle was won more by smart marketing campaigns, in my own estimation, than from truly better fishing alternatives to spin-casting reels.

Indeed, bait-casting reels were much improved over their predecessors, but they still required greater skill that came only from practice and a sensitive and well-educated feel of the thumb to quell the tangles of the bird's nest. There was even by then--and is to this day--a likelihood for having at least an occasional mess of knots in the reel even with the most-sophisticated and expensive bait-casting reel designs. They quite simply did still then and do still now--require a good measure more of operator skill to fish without handicap than did even the least expensive spin-cast reels. How bait-cast reels made a gradual but steady come-back over spin-cast reels is largely  a study in how great marketing can turn negatives into positives.

 

Now vintage relics themselves, Garcia bait-cast reels similar to the one pictured above made following the general pattern of the famous Garcia Ambassadeur 500 series proliferated and evolved during the same years as did Johnson's Spin-cast reels. Advertisements for both types of reels are the best documentation of the competitive drama that unfolded between these fishing reel types during the reel wars. These bait-castin g reels are wonderful reels. They are not are not as foolproof to use as spin-cast reels.

There had always been a sense of pride that went with knowing how to fish with bait-casting reels. It requires skill to. The REAL fishermen--the guys who had paid their dues with a lifetime of bait-casting birds-nests and blistered thumbs (from controlling the rapidly careening spool of fishing line being driven by a big old plug or a treble-hook and a gob of blood-bait with thumb tension)--were not yet ready to concede their skills as outmoded. There was a kind of not altogether undeserved label of sissy fishing reels that developed regarding spin-casting reels. After-all, with five minutes of instruction, any child old enough to have basic major limb control--heater little boys, or girls and women--could be out casting well-seasoned macho bait-casting fishermen using a Johnson Century or comparable spin-casting reel. It didn't seem quite fair.

So, as have good salesmen and good marketing departments have likely been doing since the effective but prehistoric gorge-hook fist met the fancy curved hook with a barb, the advantages of the bait-casting reels began to be enunciated over the silly, cheap, easy, sissy spin-cast reels. It was a stretch--unless the bait-casting reel was in the hands of a highly skilled fisherman to make a case for greater accuracy. But given those parameters, greater casting accuracy could be had with a bait-casting reel.

A few years ago, one of my grown sons expressed and interest in fishing. Having more time to hone in on his needs that I did when he may have expressed similar concerns as a kid, I used his desire to excuse going out and buying him a full contingent of fishing rods and reels. This included a nice bait-casting reel--one more high-tech and better than any that I had to date. Still, I neglected to instruct him properly on the skill-set required to use the bait-casting reel. I am not sure what ii was thinking. Anyway, he told me a sadly funny story about going fishing with his more-experienced friend and his frustrations with trying to use the bait-casting reel as he would the spin-casting reel. thankfully, I had at the same time also given him one of the latter as well.

The next example was a result of a garage-sale acquired bait-casting reel I picked up a couple of  years ago for a buck or two. It would be considered a vintage reel to me, but it was still kind of foreign. It was one of those sleek-looking gray bodied Quantums with a body made of carbon or fiberglass with metal flecks. It is light and pretty cool looking although now dated in its appearance. It was missing the spool-tension knob near the crank--which anyone who has used a post-modern bait-casting reel knows, is essential to the proper function of the reel to any level of satisfaction.

ZEBCO did a lot to bring cheap spin-casting reels to every one-day week-end fisherman in the world--most of them in America I would wager. ZEBCO also helped trash the reputation of spin-cast reels in the minds of many serious fishermen who might otherwise have given one of the better spin-cast reel designs such as those offered by Johnson and Abu Garcia spin-cast reels designed for serious fishermen a fair try. ZEBCO bombed out the casual recreational market with their cheap designs and made spin-cast reels synonomous with cheap, kids, sissy, and little girls. (Johnson did not help this perception with their pink Princess model of their Century reel.) Ultimately, bait-casting reels won the reel wars, with great new designs and quality manufacturing.

Even ZEBCO distanced themselves from their own cheap spin-cast brand identity with an entirely diferent label; they used the QUANTUM label to enter the high-end bait-casting reel market. Although many excellent reels came to use under the name of QUANTUM, ZEBCO also covered the low-end with cheaply priced reels such as the one pictured here.

The crank side of this QUANTUM model housed the star drag as become the convention with most bait-casting reels. The knob aft of the crank and the drag is the spool tension adjustment. The picture above showing the non-crank side of the reel shows the adjustment calibrations for a magnetic anti-backlash device. These adjustments were a complex attempt at solving the dreaded bird's nest tangles that drove so many fishermen to use the much simpler spin-cast design.

As I have come to do when I am lacking information on any subject, I went to the Internet in search of information and in this case diagrams and schematics that might aid in my efforts to make my painless financial application more than just a conversation piece. This search in turn led me to a number of user reviews with feedback as pertaining to a few similar looking, though more current models of reels that I felt might shed some light on the operation and possible repair of the reel I had in hand.

Choosing a Beginning Reeel can be Challenging when facing so many Styles without Understanding their Differences.

One consumer feedback comment was very telling. It appeared to be from a single mother who was intent on providing her young teen son the benefits of a fighting chance when it came to every manly pursuit any son who had a handy father would have. I am not being sexist here. If my experience is incorrect, I am sorry, but it is my experience, with just a few exceptions, that fishing is a male-dominated activity. It has long been a tradition that young men have been taught how to fish whether it was at summer camp or by Dad or by Grandpa. It has turned out that my daughters have both been more interested for a time than my sons were in fishing. But fishing still appear to me to be an interest fostered more for boys and men than for girls and women. This bent was also evident in the irate user feedback review offered by the lady reviewing the said bait-casting reel that had been purchased at a local department store.

This feature certainly works as intuitively as does a modern bait-casting flipping switch. And it requires very little practice. So why was this feature not a commercial success?

This mother's rant trashed the reel being reviewed, saying that neither her nor her son was able to get even one cast from the reel without it hopelessly tangling. She went on to berate the reel and the manufacturer and all of their kin for multiple generations--apparently never once considering that the reel was without fault. She even berated the comments and character of others who had gone before her in expressing their varied but largely positive reviews of the same model bait-casting reel as being rigged and conslusatory and disingenuous if not bold-face lies. This lady had a head of steam such as I have sometimes felt when I have experience multiple back-lashes wrought by my inept use of bait-casting reels. Although I felt for the lady (and the unfairly trashed reel), it was not the reels fault.

This is what happens when an inexperienced user attempts to operate a bait-casting reel in the same way that they may have used a spin-cast reel. It is an easy and I am guessing common mistake. If I recall the comments correctly, the mother had taken the reel back to the store and had exchanged it for another similar one. I am further guessing that the department store provided no guidance in what kind of reel she needed. The lady wound up with a spin-casting reel during her third acquisition, which she described and went on to extoll the virtues of the particular make and model just as passionately, which I know to be a cheap and inferior reel as far as spin-casting reels are concerned.

So, I hereby rest my case regarding the desirability of spin-casting reels, at least for the beginning angler, over a bait-casting reel for the same. Were it not for a lot of other factors--mostly issues of perception and effective marketing--I believe this could be the conclusion of many more experienced anglers as well. Now, for the specifics regarding the Johnson Accu-cast models that I felt necessitated the background information regarding the relative bait-casting strengths and weaknesses. In an effort to overcome competitive claims or those who either preferred or were marketing bait-casting reels that stressed the inherent ability of a bait-casting reel to be stopped short of its initial trajectory by using thumb pressure to slow or stop the spinning of the spool, an additional feature was tried on the Accu-cast models that offered much the same ability, albeit in a more mechanical fashion.

Back in the Day, Using a Bairt-cst Reel Required Practice. This is still True Today, although to a Lessor Degree.

One of the two old vintage bait-cast reels that I learned to cast on. It is a wonder that I bothered to learn at all, given the array of excellent spin-cast reels I had at my disposal. I think I learned as a requirement for the Boy Scout Fishing Merit Badge on my way to becoming an Eagle Scout. As I recall, the skill grew on me as does any skill. But I must have encountered a thousand tangles while learning--mostly in my backyard with different size bell-sinkers as practice weights.

I had an old tire set up as a target. Eventually I took the rig to nearby ponds and lakes and used them to catch fish. By then, the mid-sixties, it was rare for anyone of my age to know how to use such antiquated bait-cast reels with much skill. I dreamed of owning a nice shiney red Garcia Ambassadeur 5000 or 6000. 

After I went into the Navy, I never picked up another bait-cast reel for at least a couple of decades. I don't know whatever happened to my old bait-cast reels, but I never missed them. When I did eventually take a renewed interest in bait-cast reels they had evolved into another demension. I had heard how much easier they had become to use. But when I eventually got one, I still found the skills I had learned by thumbing those old reels as a kid very useful. Old spin-cast reels like the Johnson's and Abu Garcia's still showed much greater versatility and utility then and now.

In the final analasis, whether you should spend the time untangling or fishing is up to you. But as a general gem of hard-won wisdom, I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you. I use to beleive that such incidents decreased with experience. Then age-related handicaps such as deceased vision quality, decreased manual dexterity and feeling in the fingers and hands and arms, increased hand and finger tremors, and generally decreased endurance--all which are taken for granted in your youth--can contribute to a decreased fishing enjoyment and increased incidence of events that work against keeping your hook in front of fish--such as bait-casting tangles and terminal bird's nests. On the otherhand, many of these unpleasant events may well be avoided by using spin-casting reels. Just saying

The Following has been Posted Previously, but it is also Pertinent Here.

Okay, now the crux of the Accucast's unique major difference. the center of the bell is about three times the diameter of most spin-cast reels of this era. It has been made smooth with a big sort of gromet which is not readily apprent as to its purpose until the bell is removed. The underside of the gromet is recessed just inside the outer parameter of th eline exit hole. Still, the purpose is not apparent until you look at the line spool cover. The smallish nut that is usually found holding the spool cover in place has been replaced with a larger nut that is also recessed as a perfect compliment to the inside recess of the bell. The function of this male-female fit of this over-sized hollow spool cover nut is to apply pressure to the line as the line-release button pushes the spool assembly forward and into the recess of the underside of the bell--right where the line exits the inside of the reel. Walah. This is how Johnson's designers met the bait-casting reel's competition regarding greater accuracy. The idea was to enable the user to push the line-release button a second time after the initial cast had been made. This second depression of the line-release button was intended to slow or even stop cold the forward travel of the lure--just as a bait-casting reel can do.

So in one fell swoop, this Johnson reel design nullified a major competitive advantages of bait-casting reels--all with none of the negatives associated with a free-wheeling spool found on bait-casting reels. The distance advantage of bait-casting reels is mostly marketing BS--given a cost-for-cost reel comparison. This is not so hard to understand without ever even trying one of these two models out in a side-by-side comparison with a comparable weight and size bait-casting reel--to say nothing of comparable cost. A spin-cast reel is sometimes called a closed-face spinning reel by old-timers although you seldom hear this label anymore. It is actually a more accurate label because the action principle that allows a spin-cast reel to work is just like a true spinning reel--also sometimes called an open-face spinning reel.

I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you.

An open-face spinning reel has virtually no friction resistance to limit its reach even when using a very light lure. In conjunction with a long limber-action spinning rod, the forward motion of the cast propels even light-weight lures very long distances because the line is simply unwinding from the spool with hardly any restrictive friction from what little it touches the edges of the spool. This same principle is used with a spin-cast reel with only slightly more resistance as the line touches the center of the line exit-hole in the reel bell.

Furthermore, an open-face spinning reel does not do so well with heavier lures, due to the delicate operation of the method of release and also due to the line's tendency for uncontrollability because of no method for constraining the target of the line's exit. A spin-cast reel's bell itself with the line-exit hole solves this problem. The net result is that a spin-cast reel can handle a much wider range of lure weights with no adjustment or hassles.

The addition of the Johnson Accu-cast feature to these models of spin-cast reels only enhances the capability of the spin-cast reel. I can see no downside to this feature. The drawback is that it doesn't work very well intuitively--or did not for me.  I am sure I could get use to it.  The only time I really might use such a feature is if I see that I am going to wind up on the bank or in a tree. When I use a spin-casting reel, I intuitively grab the line with my non-casting hand where it exits the reel and squeeze it against the rod. So it is not like there are no alternatives with a spin-cast reel. This feature certainly works as intuitively as does a modern bait-casting flipping switch. And it requires very little practice. So why was this feature not a commercial success?

Again, I don't know for sure why the Johnson Accu-cast feature was not a commercial success. But I have my ideas regarding this. I think the users of spin-cast reels typically did not see the need for this feature. There were not looking for this level of sophistication. Since the advantage of the bait-casting reel's supposed greater accuracy was largely fluff--thought up by marketing people after-the-fact to justify the extra cost required to build a comparably performing bait-casting reel. It did not really matter to the fishermen who wound up wanting the easy-to-use spin-casting reel. The manufacturers of the main bait-casting reels of the era were already beginning to win the reel wars when it came to more experienced and serious anglers. These anglers simply did not want to identify with stereo-typical spin-cast reel user who included inexperienced casual fishermen, kids, girls, and women. It was becoming more macho to use bait-casting and/or spinning reels. No one wanted a sissy-reel no matter how well it worked.

So in one fell swoop, this Johnson reel design nullified a major competitive advantages of bait-casting reels--all with none of the negatives associated with a free-wheeling spool found on bait-casting reels.

[May I here interject a tribute to my own dad's wisdom and practicality. Dad was a man's man. There was no question regarding his macho. He was tough as nails. I am sure it likely never entered his mind to be put off by such nonsense as how it might appear that he used spin-cast reels to do most of his fishing with after Johnson changed the fishing world with their designs. Dad grew up fishing with whatever tackle was available--including his hands. Dad knew how to make his own fishing nets as was passed to him generationally. He ran trot-lines regularly on the Arkansas river. He speared fish and gigged frogs. Fish was a good part of his family's diet during the Great Depression. It was consequently a good part of our family diet growing up. Although Dad was a consummate outdoorsman and adventurer who loved the recreational aspects of hunting and fishing--to him fishing was mostly about catching fish.]

[Dad could handle a fly-rod or spinning rod or bait-casting rod and reel with the best of him. That he had fairly-well settled on Johnson and Abu Garcia spin-cast reels for virtually all of his fishing pursuits for the last half of his life--which incidentally was filled with crazy-wonderful fishing all over the Arctic and the Bush of Alaska--say much of the true utility of those quality spin-cast reels. It is also largely to blame for my exuberance stance regarding these reels. Me? I love fishing for the sport. I love spin-cast reels for their ingenuity, utility and historicity. But I know that Dad shaped a lot of my preferences.]

Bait-cast fishermen's irrational preference for lousier reel designs probably also had roots in savvy old-timers' resistance to change after a lifetime of earning their wings using bait-casting reels, spinning reels, and fly-reels. But this unfounded or at least shallow basis was seized upon by the bait-casting reel manufacturers who by-the-way also had excellent spin-cast reels to offer. They did not feel that they could win the reel wars on the spin-cast reel inventors turf, but they could ride the spin-cast wave with their own models while simultaneously improving their more expensive bait-casting reels. There also may have been inherent preferences for using bait-casting reels for these old-time main-stay reel manufacturers who had been around much longer than the upstart inventor-manufacturers of the spin-cast reels. this could have been for all the same reasons previously cited for old-timer fishermen preferred bait-casting reels.

I also believe that ZEBCO's efforts specifically targeting the low-end  of the market with their cheap (and in my estimation, inferior) spin-cast reels further muddied waters when it came to serious fishermen preferring spin-cast reels. This was likely the same phenomenon that causes me to have an irrational disdain for ZEBCO reels. Johnson themselves tried to distance and differentiate themselves from ZEBCO. And after ZEBCO had trashed the perception of all spin-cast reels as being cheap and unreliable and the kind of reels that kids, girls, and women used--and made a gazillion dollars in the process--they then distance themselves from their own brand and got into the bait-casting and open-faced spinning reel market with their own quality reel product offerings.

Most rank-and-file fisherman cannot tell you that Quantum bait-casting reels are ZEBCO products. This is no accident. ZEBCO has kept this new brand identity entirely separate from their spin-cast reel fame. The quantum brand is regarded as a decent quality bait-casting reel. They are certainly players in the bait-casting reel market. This whole story is a fascinating study in human nature, consumer preference, brand identity, and both good and bad marketing. this is a case where very literally, the market has driven inferior designs ideas over superior designs. I am saying the spin-cast reel was initially and always has been the best value, offering the most versatility and ease of operation, greater reliability, and fishing time productivity--for less money than any other design. Of course spin-cast reels are still being produced sold and used--but their hay-day as used by serious fishermen is now past and their future evolution has probably been stunted because of inaccurate consumer demand.

I hope my own kids forgive me for any oversight in teaching them the finer points of fishing. I am trying to mend that lapse with my grand-kids. But most kids today just seem to have a lot more options than I did as a kid. they don't all like to fish. If they do, I am ready and willing. But this whole confession also serves to point to the fact that spin-casting reels are good enought o satisfy the needs of all but the more hard-core if not hardy fishermen.

A few years ago, one of my grown sons expressed and interest in fishing. Having more time to hone in on his needs that I did when he may have expressed similar concerns as a kid, I used his desire to excuse going out and buying him a full contingent of fishing rods and reels. This included a nice bait-casting reel--one more high-tech and better than any that I had to date. Still, I neglected to instruct him properly on the skill-set required to use the bait-casting reel. I am not sure what ii was thinking. Anyway, he told me a sadly funny story about going fishing with his more-experienced friend and his frustrations with trying to use the bait-casting reel as he would the spin-casting reel. thankfully, I had at the same time also given him one of the latter as well.

The next example was a result of a garage-sale acquired bait-casting reel I picked up a couple of  years ago for a buck or two. It would be considered a vintage reel to me, but it was still kind of foreign. It was one of those sleek-looking gray bodied Quantums with a body made of carbon or fiberglass with metal flecks. It is light and pretty cool looking although now dated in its appearance. It was missing the spool-tension knob near the crank--which anyone who has used a post-modern bait-casting reel knows, is essential to the proper function of the reel to any level of satisfaction.

As I have come to do when I am lacking information on any subject, I went to the Internet in search of information and in this case diagrams and schematics that might aid in my efforts to make my painless financial application more than just a conversation piece. This search in turn led me to a number of user reviews with feedback as pertaining to a few similar looking, though more current models of reels that I felt might shed some light on the operation and possible repair of the reel I had in hand.

One consumer feedback comment was very telling. It appeared to be from a single mother who was intent on providing her young teen son the benefits of a fighting chance when it came to every manly pursuit any son who had a handy father would have. I am not being sexist here. If my experience is incorrect, I am sorry, but it is my experience, with just a few exceptions, that fishing is a male-dominated activity. It has long been a tradition that young men have been taught how to fish whether it was at summer camp or by Dad or by Grandpa. It has turned out that my daughters have both been more interested for a time than my sons were in fishing. But fishing still appear to me to be an interest fostered more for boys and men than for girls and women. This bent was also evident in the irate user feedback review offered by the lady reviewing the said bait-casting reel that had been purchased at a local department store.

This feature certainly works as intuitively as does a modern bait-casting flipping switch. And it requires very little practice. So why was this feature not a commercial success?

This mother's rant trashed the reel being reviewed, saying that neither her nor her son was able to get even one cast from the reel without it hopelessly tangling. She went on to berate the reel and the manufacturer and all of their kin for multiple generations--apparently never once considering that the reel was without fault. She even berated the comments and character of others who had gone before her in expressing their varied but largely positive reviews of the same model bait-casting reel as being rigged and conslusatory and disingenuous if not bold-face lies. This lady had a head of steam such as I have sometimes felt when I have experience multiple back-lashes wrought by my inept use of bait-casting reels. Although I felt for the lady (and the unfairly trashed reel), it was not the reels fault.

This is what happens when an inexperienced user attempts to operate a bait-casting reel in the same way that they may have used a spin-cast reel. It is an easy and I am guessing common mistake. If I recall the comments correctly, the mother had taken the reel back to the store and had exchanged it for another similar one. I am further guessing that the department store provided no guidance in what kind of reel she needed. The lady wound up with a spin-casting reel during her third acquisition, which she described and went on to extoll the virtues of the particular make and model just as passionately, which I know to be a cheap and inferior reel as far as spin-casting reels are concerned.

So, I hereby rest my case regarding the desirability of spin-casting reels, at least for the beginning angler, over a bait-casting reel for the same. Were it not for a lot of other factors--mostly issues of perception and effective marketing--I believe this could be the conclusion of many more experienced anglers as well. Now, for the specifics regarding the Johnson Accu-cast models that I felt necessitated the background information regarding the relative bait-casting strengths and weaknesses. In an effort to overcome competitive claims or those who either preferred or were marketing bait-casting reels that stressed the inherent ability of a bait-casting reel to be stopped short of its initial trajectory by using thumb pressure to slow or stop the spinning of the spool, an additional feature was tried on the Accu-cast models that offered much the same ability, albeit in a more mechanical fashion.

[Lest I shortchange the bait-casting reels in their proponents claims for greater accuracy, this ability to stop the travel of the lure with the thumb is but one of the features that potentially provides greater accuracy with a bait-casting reel. There are other features that contribute to accuracy; for one, the ability (also the absolute necessity) to precisely adjust for the weight of each individual lure, makes predicting its flight distance with a given casting effort contributes to this accuracy claim. This ability is controlled by properly adjusting the spool tension control which determines how freely a line is allowed to strip from the reel under the gravity of the lure as aided by the forward thrust of the attached rod and its associated action. A secondary control offered by most modern bait-casting reels controls the spool from going faster than the line can be gravitationally stripped from the reel.]

[This feature may sound very similar to the spool tension adjustment's purpose, but when properly used, the feature is really only activated by the speed of the spool. It is intermittent. This control is usually found on the side opposite of the crank-side of a bait-casting reel. In older reels and in current finely made precision bait-casting reels, it is found under the cover of the side opposite the crank-side of the reel. This type of control employs a clever series of tiny counter-balancing weights that can be positioned according to a known pattern estimated to kick-in at predetermined spool spin accelerations. Positions can be changed according to a predetermined pattern in order to prevent a spool from spinning beyond the uniform constant caused by the forward motion of the lure--thereby preventing the spool from running ahead of the line.]

[Back-lashing happens when the natural acceleration of the line spool caused by the forward momentum of the spool itself becomes faster than the lure and the line is driving it. When the spool''s momentum exceeds the speed at which the line is driving it, the resulting slack excess line has no where to go. The loose line is then actually trapped and wound back over itself and becomes tangled and is often knotted in the proverbial bird's nest (called so because  the tangle resembles the organized chaos of a real bird's nest). These weight-controlled anti-backlashing devices have long been available on the most expensive bait-casting reels. These are usually referred to as centrifugal anti-backlashing controls after the centrifugal force employed to signal the spool resistance to be activated in order to brake the spin. These devices are also sometimes referred to as brakes.]

[I am not sure that I fully understand all of the minute nuances of why this feature works--although I do know how to adjust them in order to arrest more of less spool over-spin. There are other types of anti-backlash controls that are adjusted with a knob on the outside of the reel that uses magnets for the same purpose of arresting similar spool over-spin. I have myself now intrigued to the point that I will have to examine one or more of these magnetic devices and learn why they work. However, since such understanding is not much necessary to the proper use of such devices, I will not attempt such an endeavor just now. Suffice it to merely explain that a knob or similar rotary control often with positions calibrated from zero to ten will increase the amount of spool braking that is applied and/or at what speed the spool spin it is automatically braked. To me, such inventions are extraordinary feats of mechanical engineering. They attest to me of the overall inventiveness of fishermen as well as engineers.]

[Yet another of the requisite design features that may make some bait-casting reels potentially more accurate than other types of reels is the ability for the spool to spin freely forward in order to facilitate very long casts. These reels try their best to defy physics as friction is minimized by employing quality and very small ball-bearings that both limit the surface area of the line spool's inner core that comes into contact with the spool and reel frame sides. Generally, the more ball-bearings used to evenly distribute the weight over the surface area of the points of contact, although the quality of materials, the design, and the kind and amount of lubrication of the overall reel also plays a big role. While less and more uniform resistance affect the potential distance of the cast, it also further enhances the spools possibility of out-spinning the line--thereby creating its own set of back-lashing problems that has to be adjusted and controlled.]

I am not sure that I fully understand all of the minute nuances of why this feature works--although I do know how to adjust them in order to arrest more of less spool over-spin

[Other factors that may offer advantages to the versatility of bait-casting reels in the hands of a very savvy and experienced angler is that the open-spool nature of a bait-casting reel allows a much wider range and kinds of fishing line that can be used with them. This can potentially be a  clear advantage. Incidentally, pertinent to the discussion of casting accuracy, this variable of line type, size, and texture also futher affects the behavior of the reel--adding to the complexity of its use.]

[One more inherent design feature found in most bait-casting reels that can affect its application and performance is that the construction generally lends itself to a stronger design--translating into the ability to fight bigger and tougher fish--although this claim to has its qualifications and its caveats as well. Most big, particularly salt-water sport fishing, is done on bait-casting reels. I must also add that both spinning reels and fly-fishing reels are used to take all sizes of large fish--pointing up the fact that skill and finesse is equally important as is reel design. I here concede that with truly big and hard-fighting fish spin-casting reels probably should give way to reels available in beefier designs. It is not that spin-casting reels could not be designed on a scale with other kinds of reels--it is that the evolution of spin-casting reels for a lot of other reasons stopped short of reels being introduced to the market and accepted by the users. Such big reels, as far as I know do not exist. Maybe this is a thought that should be explored further. ]

[This is probably the most that I will ever refer to bait-casting reels in this weblog. I should therefore take opportunity to add my take and my experience upon how to deal with the inevitable back-lashed bird's nest condition so often wrought by their use. Whether one can recover from a backlash situation depends in large measure on the amount of time and patience one cares to devote to the problem. How much money you are willing to justify losing is also a factor. If I was a professional bass tournament fishermen in competition, which I will never be, I would deal with a backlash by picking up the favorite similar reel and continuing without missing more than a beat or two. I have certainly done this.

Short of that, I might whip out my razor sharp knife and cut the back-lashed bird's nest into a bunch of pieces, which will usually allow it to be quickly stripped off and retied onto a lure onto good line underneath the tangled part. I have also done this. There is a reason that spools usually hold way more line than is necessary to make even the longest casts possible. this is reality. Using this remedy be careful not to pick the good portion of line up while overlooking an underlying cut in the line that may not be readily evident. You can usually spot these by taking a very close and careful look and by discarding enough line ot make sure that you are past all of these cuts.]

[Another remedy,,which makes perfect sense, but which I have never seemed to have the forethought to try, is to have ready alternate spare reel spools that are pre-threaded with line. It may be that a tangled spool can be freed sufficiently to remove it entirely from the frame and replace it with another ready one. It has been my experience that the tangles exceed the clearance or interfere with the removal of the reel without also cutting a bunch of line. I have sometimes wound up removing a spool in order to remove the tangle. but not without a lot of line slashing to get to that point. If I had another ready spool full of good line, it might make sense at that juncture to replace the other one. I can't really see that it would, but it might.]

[I am sometimes accused of being stubborn. I prefer to call it doggedness. Whatever it is, I have sometimes, more often when in was young and had fewer alternative resources and options, chosen to untangle and thereby salvage, if not all, at least some of my fishing line. My success at this varied, but I am glad that I have this experience however unpleasant and time-consuming it may ahve been at the time. I must have seen no good alternatives. But in the process I discovered that if one holds his temper and calmly approaches the problem at hand rationally and with the knowledge that at least some of these bird's nests are not terminal. they can be untangled fairly quickly. Even now after more than a half century of fishing experience, I experience occasional birds nests when using bait-casting reels. This may be in part because I am constantly fiddling with, fixing, and trying different reels. But regardless of why it happens, I confess that it does.]

[this is how I now deal with my back-lashed lines in bait-casting reels. the minute the backlash occurs, I try to answer the question as to why--with a mind of not repeating the mistake or malfunction with that reel subsequently. This done, I then quickly assess the degree of the problem. If it is just a small backlash, then my odds of a quick recovery are enhanced, though not a hundred-percent.  I will usually decide at this point to test how badly the tangle really is. This mostly depend upon how tight the wrap has become. If I have not tried to reel it in, thereby tightening the wrap, the wrap can often be undone fairly easily by making sure that the spool is released to spin freely and then gently pulling at wads of the tangled wrap to loosen it. I then may reverse the turn of the spool, free-wheeling it by hand in reverse in an effort to uncover and thereby release the main point of tangle.]

This is probably the most that I will ever refer to bait-casting reels in this weblog. I should therefore take opportunity to add my take and my experience upon how to deal with the inevitable back-lashed bird's nest condition so often wrought by their use.

[this works probably a third of the time. If it does not fix the tangle or only partially fixes it, I will then lightly pull the line forward on the lure side of the tangle very lightly--with increasing tension to see if I can pull the tangle out from the now-loosened coil of line. Using these two maneuvers alternately will free the backlash entirely about two-thirds of the time within five minutes or sometimes much less. I begin to get antsy at this point and will usually resort to more radical measures. But as a kid, I am sure that I sat down at the fishing bank and used up most for my fishing time by meticulously untangling the line. If you do this, our success ultimately depends upon your ability to loosen the upper wraps so that you can eventually reach the one or more main binds that originally started the whole mess. My guess is that if you cannot do this within fifteen minutes you may never be able to do it. Sometimes, without any help on your part, the back-lashed line underneath gets way too tight and ties the hardest and most complex hard knots sufficient to tiny any sailor--even lifers. But sometimes your effort first, helps you understand the mess for dealing with the problem the next time and second, salvages at least some of your fishing line--if this priority exceeds the value of your lost fishing time.]

[In the final analasis, whether you hould spend the time untangling or fishing is up to you. But as a general gem of hard-won wisdom, I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you. I use to beleive that such incidents decreased with experience. Then age-related handicaps such as deceased vision quality, decreased manual dexterity and feeling in the fingers and hands and arms, increased hand and finger tremors, and generally decreased endurance--all which are taken for granted in your youth--can contribute to a decreased fishing enjoyment and increased incidence of events that work against keeping your hook in front of fish--such as bait-casting tangles and terminal bird's nests. On the otherhand, many of these unpleasant events may well be avoided by using spin-casting reels. Just saying.]

Okay, now the crux of the Accucast's unique major difference. the center of the bell is about three times the diameter of most spin-cast reels of this era. It has been made smooth with a big sort of gromet which is not readily apprent as to its purpose until the bell is removed. The underside of the gromet is recessed just inside the outer parameter of th eline exit hole. Still, the purpose is not apparent until you look at the line spool cover. The smallish nut that is usually found holding the spool cover in place has been replaced with a larger nut that is also recessed as a perfect compliment to the inside recess of the bell. The function of this male-female fit of this over-sized hollow spool cover nut is to apply pressure to the line as the line-release button pushes the spool assembly forward and into the recess of the underside of the bell--right where the line exits the inside of the reel. Walah. This is how Johnson's designers met the bait-casting reel's competition regarding greater accuracy. The idea was to enable the user to push the line-release button a second time after the initial cast had been made. This second depression of the line-release button was intended to slow or even stop cold the forward travel of the lure--just as a bait-casting reel can do.

So in one fell swoop, this Johnson reel design nullified a major competitive advantages of bait-casting reels--all with none of the negatives associated with a free-wheeling spool found on bait-casting reels. The distance advantage of bait-casting reels is mostly marketing BS--given a cost-for-cost reel comparison. This is not so hard to understand without ever even trying one of these two models out in a side-by-side comparison with a comparable weight and size bait-casting reel--to say nothing of comparable cost. A spin-cast reel is sometimes called a closed-face spinning reel by old-timers although you seldom hear this label anymore. It is actually a more accurate label because the action principle that allows a spin-cast reel to work is just like a true spinning reel--also sometimes called an open-face spinning reel.

I offer the idea that tangles and untangling and hooking and hooking and unhooking, and knotting and unknotting, and cussing or not--is just part and parcel to the sport of fishing. If it drives you crazy--then fishing is probably not for you.

An open-face spinning reel has virtually no friction resistance to limit its reach even when using a very light lure. In conjunction with a long limber-action spinning rod, the forward motion of the cast propels even light-weight lures very long distances because the line is simply unwinding from the spool with hardly any restrictive friction from what little it touches the edges of the spool. This same principle is used with a spin-cast reel with only slightly more resistance as the line touches the center of the line exit-hole in the reel bell.

Furthermore, an open-face spinning reel does not do so well with heavier lures, due to the delicate operation of the method of release and also due to the line's tendency for uncontrollability because of no method for constraining the target of the line's exit. A spin-cast reel's bell itself with the line-exit hole solves this problem. The net result is that a spin-cast reel can handle a much wider range of lure weights with no adjustment or hassles.