Thursday, May 5, 2011

Thursday Review: ORCA's Reel News (May 2011)

Thursday Review

The mails brought the latest issue of the Reel News, and it was a good one!

This was a great issue for Pflueger collectors. We got the second part of Stu Lawson's awesome history of Pflueger fly reels -- this time the underappreciated Pflueger Sal-Trout. Bob Miller gives us the next part of "Pflueger vs. the Backlash" which is about as good as it gets from a reel history point of view. I even threw in my two bits on Pflueger with an article on gold presentation Pflueger reels. It was a fun piece to write.

My regular column on trade reels featured the reels of the Blish, Mize & Silliman company, a firm I was pleasantly surprised to discover was still around today. Not too often I get to cover companies still in existence.

We also got a special treat from noted Forbes columnist Monte Burke, who penned a neat little piece on the passing of Stan Bogdan.

We've been fortunate, also, that Steven K. Vernon has been given us some great early reel history of late. This one is a follow up to his article on the 1826 automatic reel, and we even get a rebuttal letter from Vernon on the Graham Turner controversy which should settle the issue once and for all.

The big feature is the third of three parts on Conroy by Tom Kerr. Nice job, Tom!

Some small articles including Phil White's review of Ben Wright's new book on spinning reels, Jim Schottenham's Auction Report, Tom Eidson's "Cast your Weirdo" and Ben Wright's piece on knock-off Japanese Mitchell 300s round out an outstanding issue.

If you are not an ORCA member--and why aren't you?--you can join us by Clicking Here. The Reel News is lovingly edited by Richard K. Lodge.

-- Dr. Todd

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