Thursday Review: ORCA Reel News (July 2012)

Thursday Review: ORCA Reel News (July 2012)

I always look forward to the coming of ORCA's Reel News, and this issue (July 2012) was full of interesting articles.

The feature article this issue was Bill Sonnett's "The Joys of Using Antique FIshing Tackle" which is, as far as I'm concerned, the best primer on using antique gear you will find. As we are currently running a Vintage Tackle Contest here on the blog, which you can read about by clicking here, this kind of article is always of great interest to me.

Michael Hackney gives us another of his analysis of early reels with "The Orvis 1874 Patented Fly Reel." It looks at the groundbreaking and very rare ventilated spool fly reel invented by Manchester's legendary Charles Orvis.

Michael Cacioppo continues his analysis of Penn Reels with "The Penn Sea Hawk." It details this popular Penn surf reel.

Jim Schottenham gives us the Auction Report, which covers all the gems sold on eBay over the past two months. Lots of great reels of late!

My own contribution this issue was a detailed history of Sportmaster fishing reels. Sportmaster was a name used by Supplee-Biddle Hardware and cooperatively applied to fishing tackle sold by a loose confederation of hardware companies.

Bob Miller gives us a great piece on Pflueger reels. "7 Decades of the Pflueger Reel: 1940-1949" details the war years for the Enterprise Manufacturing Company. Very cool stuff as usual!

Ben Wright gives us the skinny on the Orvis 100 Italian made reels, and the Spinning Reel Report which originally is published on this web site finally makes it way into the pages of the Reel News.

Finally, Stu Lawson writes on transitional Pflueger Medalist fly reels. They are very cool, and Stu has some neat stories behind one of them.

All in all, it was a great issue very much covering the many attributes that ORCA has going for it -- there was a reel for every taste in these pages!

-- Dr. Todd