So, how do you go about choosing a reel?
Simple. Need/Use=Cost
Need - what do you need? If you are learning to fly fish you need a reel that is appropriate for the fishing you want to do. Simple? Not really. I fish in the Northwest. That means I fish for steelhead in the winter, spring, summer and fall, trout in the spring, summer and fall (and occasionally the winter), and salmon in the fall. That means one reel will never do it.
When I bought my first outfit, after taking a 10-year break from fishing, I bought a used 1494 1/2 Pflueger and an extra spool. I loaded up one spool with 6 weight floating line and the other spool with a sink-tip 7 weight line. I also bought a store-brand 9-foot graphite 6/7 weight rod. The whole set-up cost me about $150 back in 1990 and I spent at least $80 on the lines. When I added waders, boots, fly boxes, vest, glasses, etc., the total came to more than $300. And I was frugal back then too, but a little younger and more at risk to impulse purchases.
I caught plenty of trout that year and discovered the obsession of steelhead. That day is well marked in my mental filing cabinet - a beautiful early-morning trout fishing trip interrupted when the pool I was fishing exploded in silver, my reel screamed, the steelhead raced downriver and I enjoyed a 20-minute adrenaline rush, even though I lost the fish within 5 minutes of fighting it.
None of my gear failed, I just happened to be fishing a muddler minnow with 4-pound tippet. Four months later, I would use the same rod and reel and the sink-tip to land my first steelhead in the same pool but at winter flows instead of summer. The fish was a nice 8-pound hen and the fight lasted close to 20 minutes (I still enjoy a bit of adrenalin as I write about it), and the equipment did it's job.
I still have a Pflueger 1494 1/2 reel, in fact three of them. And I have added two 1495 1/2 reels for steelhead and two 1498 reels for salmon (all used USA made reels from before 1980).
To be continued...
