Thursday, September 8, 2011

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

ORCA's Reel News (September 2011)



This ain't your father's Reel News!

Some exciting new developments in ORCA are highlighted by the arrival of redesigned and upgraded Reel News, the bi-monthly magazine. Not only are the front and back covers now in glorious color, but the internal pages have been upgraded in quality so the images are much cleaner than ever before. Kudos to new ORCA president John Elder for making this happen!

The issue itself is another big winner. It starts with Bob Miller's always outstanding "Pflueger Pfacts" article, this time it's called "A Guide to Fishing With Early Pflueger Reels." It details the many options a vintage tackle angler has in fishing, cleaning, and maintaining a great old Pflueger reel. Many advanced vintage tackle anglers like Bill Sonnett use Pflueger reels, and Bob shows us why.

My own contribution this month is "Arnold's Awful Reels" which is a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the Arnold Palmer fishing reels distributed by the Keystone Corporation of Chicago, Illinois. As an Arnold Palmer reel in the box recently sold for $420 on eBay I think this is a timely article!

Ben Wright the spinning reel guru gives us an excellent look at the Italian reelmaker Zangi. Since Zangi made many of the ultralight trade reels, this was a great reference article for the reel collector.

Stu Lawson has given us the "The Raised Piller Pflueger Progress" in his on-going survey of Pflueger fly reels. Like all of Stu's work, it's excellent.

Editor Richard Lodge does a nice job of outlining the recent ORCA Nationals in Waupaca, Wisconsin. I had planned to write about this but a family emergency has kept me from many planned things of late, so it was great to revisit this excellent event.

Finally, Mike Cacioppo, author of a forthcoming book on Penn reels (more info on this soon!) gives us a great look at a restoration of a classic Vom Hofe reel. Nice job, Mike, and great color photos on the back cover of the restoration, too!

Finally, we get a great review of Bob Halver's new Airex Book by Ben Wright. He says "the book is highly recommended for all reel, lure and rod collectors, and even Lionel toy train collectors."

All in all a great 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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