The Secret Swim...

Although the 300 is a great reel and we all have owned one along the line at some stage in our angling lives i would have to say the the Cardinal's win it hands down for me................... the clutch on the originals is something to be treasured.

The Aerial for sheer ogle value from childhood, the 300 for practically defining specimen hunting, the Baitrunner for launching a thousand bivvies but a wooden starback reel for longevity. There were still a few being fished in the 60s.

Ooh i say all coming from a man of the cloth.
Peace is glorious Amen.

Not that I'm on the fence or anything, but I agree with every word written here.

So I didn't vote.

At least the Mitchell is affordable...the Aeriel less so. The Mitchell is easier to use, the bits are still out there because so many dealers stocked them and I can take it to bits myself. Sometimes I can get it back together again.

I notice nobody mentions the Ambidex, even though one pulled The Bishop in.....I have got a couple of good ones, but they took hours and hours to get that way. ( and I've got a lot of bits left over, since they were built with matched innards )

I'm suprised the Speedia is yet to get a vote, they seem to have everything an Aeriel has except the mystique.

I confess to not having fished with an Abu Cardinal 55 either.

It's very hard to pinpoint just one reel.

My shortlist would be:

Mitchell 300
Mitchell Match
Cardinal 55

which were the reels I used most in my early days.

But if I analyse my fishing over the last few years, the reels I use most are;

Daiwa 1657 Autobail
Daiwa 3050 Mini Regal
Bob James Centrepin (the lightweight version)

and I am a recent convert to the Shimano Aero 5010 GT.

I can claim no centrepin expertise, but I do like Grice and Young reels, too.

Choices, choices.

What about the Mitchell 408 ? Sexy Gleason gears for that wierd line-lay and short enough for me to easily get my fingertip to the spool edge to control a cast.

It's a strange reel, I don't recall what it cost but with those gears it was hardly an entry level boys reel....perhaps it was aimed at grammar school kids ?

I am going along with the majority view of the Mitchell 300 which is my regular fixed spool device.

I do however love using centrepins and favour my well used Speedia.

yep, got a lovely 300 which is still in active service. it was one of those "objects of desire" when i was a kid. i can still recall waiting for the tackle shops to open after christmas one year (do you remember when everything used to shut for days on end?), having saved all my christmas money for an intrepid black prince. god, it felt like an eternity!

i could only afford a 300 a couple of years ago, so very glad to be using one now. i've also got an ambidex 9 in mint condition, which is being used at least once a week. i don't see the point in having these things in glass cases!

what about the young's beaudex? it's my main fly reel...

I would. Why? Coz I like 'em.

Leaving aside the subjective matter of personal preference, Aerials are all very well, but realistically how many did you see (in life or in photos, depending on your age!) hanging off rods when they were current? In the only photos I have of FWK himself he appears to be using a Hardy Wallis reel rather than an Allc0cks Aerial. Certainly by the sixties and seventies the Rapidex seemed to be the most common centrepin - if the photos in my book collection are anything to go by - with perhaps the Match Aerial (a reel I'd concede is more iconic than the earlier wide-drum contraptions so beloved of tweedy barbelists) running it a close second - but the Mitchell outnumbered those by at least 50 to 1. From around 1955 until 1976 I'd say there were more Mitchells on rods than all other makes put together, and for the next ten years or more they held their ground. When I worked in a tackle shop (mid eighties) most of the customers used Mitchells or one sort or another, though the ABU 506 was also popular for light float work on the local canal.

Given the average age group of contributors to this forum, that puts us all squarely into the Mitchell generation, so it's hardly surprising this reel comes out on top, even if it's not a personal favourite.