Understanding Modern Trout Fly Reels
Introduction
This article is about the kind of reels we'll normally find in the UK for trout fishing here.
For UK trout fishing, the reel is the least important piece of gear we have. Many people consider it simply a container for the line. Tenkara fly anglers don't even use one.
But for those who like to play a fish off the reel's drag it's a critical piece of equipment and for others a reel is a piece of exquisite engineering-as-art that will one day become an heirloom. Some people simply buy them as investments and put them on a shelf to admire.
You'll have to make up your own mind where you are on that tool-to-ornament spectrum.
History
Fishing reels have been around in some form or other for hundreds of years and were called winches or winders in pre-Victorian England. Many reels were made by artisans, individual craftsmen and gunsmiths in the 1800s from wood, brass, steel and ebonite but perhaps the archetypal fly reel form that all modern fly reels descended from was the Hardy Perfect which had a drag and a detachable spool..
![Hardy Perfect]( "Hardy Perfect")
You'll find a short history of reels as well as all things fly fishing in Mark Kurlansky's book "The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing" - highly recommended read - but here's a short history.
http://www.fishingmuseum.org.uk/reels_overview.html
[Anybody got any other good links or recommended books?]
Components of a fly reel
All fly reels look like centre pin reels - because they are. The centre pin is a very old design - based on a hub and axle like a wheel; the pin in the centre of the reel is also called the spindle, shaft or post.
The spool spins around the spindle and holds the line. The handle is attached to the spool.
Some kinds of spools are fully interchangeable cassettes - usually made of polycarbonate plastic. This is a clever and low-cost way of keeping many different lines without needing to buy many different reels or expensive metal spools.
The spool has an arbour. The arbour is the centre part of the spool that the line is wrapped around. Arbours can have large, medium and small diameters. They also have various widths, obviously the wider the arbour the more line can be contained on the reel. More on this later.
The frame holds the spool in place and guides the line onto and off it; it can be open or closed.
The drag is a brake on the spindle which slows the line coming off the reel when a fish runs, protecting the line from sudden breakages. It's controlled by loosening and tightening the drag knob on the side of the reel. Drags can be open or fully sealed. Open drags allow the user to maintain them, sealed drags stop water, salt and grit entering the mechanism.
A few reels do not have drags, these reels are click and pawl. With no drag they can be very light and are used mainly for small fish. You use your hand and fingers to brake the reel and slow the fish. The pawl makes the all-important click and stops line overruns when you pull line off the reel. (Line overruns are when the reel keeps spinning after you've stopped pulling line off - it can cause a bird's nest tangle.)
The reel foot fixes the reel onto the rod.
The size of the reel seat is an AFFTA standard like the line standard. This means that any fly reel younger than 20 years or so should fit on any fly rod.
![Image]()
And that's pretty much it. But of course, this is fly fishing and we like to make things more complicated than that so there are multiple tweaks and variants around this basic design.
Here's an exploded image of a modern reel with an unsealed drag and an open frame.
![1653390779072.png]( "1653390779072.png")
Here's a click and pawl reel. The clicker can be seen in the left-hand picture as a small, silver pointer. It meshes with the cog in the right-hand picture.
![1653390806684.png]( "1653390806684.png")
Materials
Aluminium
Probably the majority of reels made today are of aluminium alloy which is light, durable and machinable. There are two ways to make a fly reel out of aluminium; machine it or diecast it. And just for fun, there's a hybrid method that machines diecast parts.
(There are also hot and cold forging - ie stamping - too but I haven't seen those methods mentioned in reel marketing material.)
Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC), Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)
These technologies are used to carve reels out of solid blocks of aluminium alloy, like Michelangelo finding David inside a block of marble.
You may have read the terms "bar stock" or "billet" in a reel's marketing material. "Bar stock" refers to the solid bar of aluminium that the reel is carved out of. CNC, is the program used by a CAM system that produces the reel's parts from the block.
You'll also sometimes see the term 'aircraft grade' used alongside CNC as an indication of quality (and possibly to justify a high price). Whether a reel actually needs to be made out of aircraft quality alloy or indeed whether that's the best material for the job is moot. "Aircraft quality" doesn't actually define much but most higher-end CNC reels are cut out of 6061-T6 alloy which is 98% aluminium and 1% magnesium with some other elements chucked in. 6061 is actually used for some aircraft parts, but also in truck frames, rivets, motorboats and so on so maybe it's not that big a deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6061_aluminum_alloy
CNC and CAM methods make it possible for manufacturers to make repeatable, high tolerance parts reasonably quickly, if rather wastefully (see video below).
Here's how Hardy make a CNC reel
And here's how a highly skilled guy does the same thing almost by hand and eye.
Both manual and CNC methods look like terribly wasteful processes, though no doubt the waste aluminium is re-cycled.
Die-casting
Depending on volume, a cheaper method of making aluminium reels is by using a die-cast process. Here molten aluminium is poured or injected into moulds under pressure.
These reels can feel a little less refined - this is how one retailer describes them
Die-Cast Aluminium reels should not be confused with machined aluminium reels. Die cast aluminium is metal that has been heated and cast in to the shape of a mould - often there are tell-tale molding marks on die cast reels, small burrs and imperfections. Die cast reels are more impact resistant than plastic but have nowhere near the structural integrity of machine aluminium reels.
That's probably a bit of an unfair description as most modern reels feel and look pretty good, but there's no doubt that diecast reels can be made out of lower quality alloy that do not like to be dropped onto hard surfaces. But then neither do thin, lightweight CNC reels.
But not all diecast reels are inferior products these days, an example of a well-made diecast reel, which appears to defy that description is the Lamson Liquid which is also known for its excellent drag system.
https://www.waterworks-lamson.com/products/liquid
Another big value diecast seller is the Orvis Clearwater.
Finishing
All reels are finished with some kind of coating to protect them from our clumsiness.
Anodising
Aluminium alloy reels are sometimes described as being anodised, which "is an electrochemical process that converts the metal surface into a decorative, durable, corrosion-resistant, anodic oxide finish."
It's by far the best form of coating, especially for saltwater fishing, but as usual there are varying qualities.
This is a good article by Orvis explaining the process.
https://news.orvis.com/fly-fishing/pro-tips-understanding-anodizing
Powder Coating and Painting
Other, probably cheaper, methods are powder coating and painting with the former being more protective than the latter.
Interpreting this
When you put all this together you can create a bit of a quality ladder with anodised CNC/CAM (or handmaking) from bar stock on the top rung and painted diecast on the bottom. In between we have
THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT.
As usual, it's actually quite difficult to get accurate information about the gear that you're buying from the website you'll be buying it from. At the expensive end of the market, the reel's bragging rights are usually spelled out fully and effusively. But lower down the price range things get more blurred and open to interpretation. Often the word 'machined' will be used to describe a reel, but that could mean almost anything - if they use it, they probably want you to think it's carved from a solid block, but unless they specifically say so, it might be cast, then machined.
So long as diecasting uses good processes and good alloys, there's no reason why they too can't be anodised, but they rarely seem to be; the reason can only be cost as it's by far the best method of protecting your reel. But also not all bar stock, CNC reels are anodised - my Snowbee Spectre isn't.
[...] precision CNC machined aluminium reel at an amazing price! Machined from high grade, aircraft aluminium bar stock, […] Extra hard paint finish for salt-water & chip resistance.
So the educated buyer will want know whether the reel is machined from bar stock (and preferably with a high grade alloy), whether it's diecast and then machined, and whether it is anodised, powder coated or painted. Because each of those can be a step down the quality and price ladder. Remember, die cast reel rarely bounce and paint flakes.
Plastic
The cheapest reels are made out of plastic and that - possibly apart from their lightness - is their only real advantage, although you could make a case for durability. One problem is that they are so cheap that their internal components may also be poor. They're ok to get started with, but most serious anglers would avoid them.
Carbon Composites
Composites, sometimes called graphite, reels were once in the majority but now have become less fashionable. I'm not sure why, they make light, serviceable reels. Many remember the Leeda Dragonfly reels (well I do anyway) - sturdy and clever with detachable spools.
https://getflyfishing.com/parts-of-a-fly-reel/
Price
This is fly fishing so you can spend £20 on a perfectly functional fly reel or £3,000 on one that does almost exactly the same job in normal use but was made by the brand equivalent of Gucci; I've seen them described as jewellery - and if you look at some Abel reels you'll see why - but they are also very well engineered.
CNC reels use the most expensive materials followed by die-cast, composites and plastic. And quality is pretty much in that order too. With the exception of reels bought purely for investment, saltwater reels with sealed drags are the most expensive.
The majority of reels are now made in China and it's common to find spools from one brand will fit another as the brands tend to make only small cosmetic changes to a standard model to differentiate themselves. Most reels are very well made these days regardless of price.
Arbours (sp: arbor, US)
The arbour is the centre area of the spool, the part that the line winds around. This can be of a small or large diameter and many points in between. All arbours were originally quite small but now probably most are large. A large diameter arbour makes for a more efficient retrieve - fewer turns of the handle to retrieve the same amount of line. It is also less likely to create a memory in the line as it's packed in larger curves.
There are trade-offs though, the larger the arbour the larger the frame and spool and therefore the heavier the weight. Perhaps counterintuitively, small diameter arbours can contain more line and backing.
Here's a large arbour reel - note that the line is wrapped around the outside of the spool like a tyre sits on a wheel hub.
![Orvis Clearwater Large Arbour Fly Reels - Glasgow Angling Centre]( "Orvis Clearwater Large Arbour Fly Reels - Glasgow Angling Centre")
![How to Select the Correct Size Fly Fishing Reel - Guide Recommended]( "How to Select the Correct Size Fly Fishing Reel - Guide Recommended")
Arbours can also be of different widths ie the inside measurement across the reel from the handle side of the spool to the drag knob. You can see in the image above that the arbour width tends to increase in size as the arbour diameter also increases.
Cassette reels
Cassette reels use low-cost polycarbonate spools which are easily interchangeable so the reel can be easily loaded with several spools containing different lines. I'm a big fan of cassette reels because I experiment with a lot of lines and I don't want to have to buy a dozen reels.
![/var/folders/k2/yh3xk_c93wxfxc_x7ljqq43c0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/81nt1rPD4NL._AC_SL1500_.jpg]( "/var/folders/k2/yh3xk_c93wxfxc_x7ljqq43c0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/81nt1rPD4NL._AC_SL1500_.jpg")
Drawbar Reels
As the name implies, these type of reels have a bar that runs through their centre. Turning the drag on the bar pulls the spool onto the cork friction plate.
![1653499118436.jpeg]( "1653499118436.jpeg")
It's a remarkably simple design equalled only by the remarkable price of these forms of reel. This is a video of an Islander reel showing its working parts. $750.
Semi-automatic Reels
Semi-automatic reels have a clockwork mechanism and a lever that winds the line in, er, automatically. They have the same drag mechanism as a normal fly reel for fighting a fish but the reel's springs aren't strong enough to pull in the fish and, as they don't normally have a handle, the fish is fought and retrieved by hand.
![JMC Ozone Semi-Automatic Fly Reels | FLY SHOP Europe]( "JMC Ozone Semi-Automatic Fly Reels | FLY SHOP Europe")
They're quite popular in continental Europe but less so much here. They can be quite expensive and because of the extra clockwork tend to be heavier than standard fly reels.
The main advantage seems to be in competition fishing with Czech nymphs where time is important - reeling in with the lever is about three-times faster that reeling with a handle.
The winding speed is constant, and can be controlled by the number or length of lever presses.
Slack in the line can reeled in with just one finger on the lever, something not possible with normal reels which require the second hand for winding.
The Drag
Drags can be very important to some but not at all to others. It mostly depends on the size of the fish and whether and how hard they run. For most UK trout fishing drags are not essential as even larger trout can be played by hand - either by palming the reel or simply gripping and releasing line with the non-rod hand. But others like to play a fish 'off the reel' and for that they require a decent drag.
I like a large drag knob which gives good feedback when tightened - preferably with a click, although these seem rare - and can be set to spin freely to all the way to almost a dead stop in only a single turn - and do it evenly and progressively.
There are other uses for drag. If you have it set fairly lightly it will prevent overruns when pulling line off the reel - ie the spool won't carry on spinning causing a tangle. You also tighten it down when you're carrying a set-up rod with the fly in the keeper ring.
Basic click and pawl reels don't have a separate drag system, just a simple clicker to create some resistance to the spool turning, which stops reel overruns. However, on more advanced click and pawl reels the level of resistance is adjustable, which creates a 'click drag' type system; though not one powerful enough to stop a determined fish.
Components of drag systems
The drag system has been made in many different ways but these days you normally find the drag behind the spindle. Drags are similar to car clutches where circular plates press against each other, the friction between the plates causing the braking effect. As we tighten the drag knob the friction plates press harder against each other and the spindle slows.
The friction washer itself - the thing that's being squeezed to create the brake - can be made of paper, cork, carbon, ceramic, felt, Teflon, stainless steel, aluminium etc. Here's a video of a guy dissembling various drag systems. I don't recommend his use of the scalpel but it shows you the inside of the drag mechanism.
And another showing how to make a replacement washer for the drag out of G10 composite
It matters a lot what that friction washer is made out of as it will get very hot when a fish is tearing off into the distance, and the various materials used react differently to pressure and heat. Some burn! Others expand and still others lose friction. If you find yourself having to tighten the drag after a fish has been on for a while, it's because it's losing friction.
So you'd think that the best material for the job would have been found by now and all reels would use it - but sadly not. Here's a rundown.
Type of Drag System
This is unfortunately a topic that could require pages of information to describe what was discovered in the DragensteinTM Project. I will attempt to generalize and narrow it down to a few salient points.
A. Is the system a dry washer system or is grease incorporated? If the system is a stack of grease-impregnated felt washers running against metal, consider that the performance is going to change as the reel and drag system change temperature, grease is extruded, and as the felt washers age. In fact, these popular systems will never run the same way twice until the felt is totally disintegrated. Drag performance will change depending on the temperature. If they are on the deck of a boat in tropical sun or in a snow storm in Alaska, they will never perform the same way twice. These are not going to be good reels for fast running, open-water fish. They may work for trout or bream fishing where the drag will receive little use.
B. The same advice applies generally for grease-impregnated cork or cork composite. As the grease is extruded and the cork flattens and wears out, the drag system will continue to change. They are only slightly more stable than grease-impregnated felt and subject to the same problems as felt. These types of washers will permanently compress if the drag is not fully loosened when the reel is stored and in general loose their performance over time.
C. If the heart of the reel drag system is dry carbon or a dry carbon fiber, it will probably follow the trend we saw in testing. It will start running with plenty of drag, perhaps with minimal start-up forces (typical initial spike in drag forces as the line begins running), but will immediately go into a period of fade where drag forces taper off. That is then typically followed by a period of drag pressure increase as the spool empties line (spool spinning speed is increasing). That increase can be many times the original drag pressure setting.
Obviously this can be a big problem if the angler is not anticipating it. It is necessary to adjust the drag repeatedly as the fish is played and with continued removal of line.
D. Teflon (PTFE) drag washers are frequently found in spinning reel drag and can be very problematic. Teflon is known for being very slippery stuff and may give the impression that it will make a good adjustable friction surface. That only sounds good in theory. Teflon is very soft, permanently compresses very easily as it gets hot, and is too slick to make a usable drag. Even when it is impregnated with glass or some other substance (and it also goes by a lot of different names so you have to be careful to check it out), it still compresses and will loose its adjustability. The exception to what I am telling you here is my next discussion.
E. The best performing drags tested on DragensteinTM were
consistently drag systems with drag washers made of Rulon. Rulon comes in a number of different types, each with their own friction characteristics, and if properly designed in the reel will provide a fisherman with his best choice for an open-water drag system. RulonR is basically a teflon based material, but it has been altered in composition (proprietary composition) so that many of the undesirable traits of teflon are avoided. This material will reproduce consistent results during testing if everything is done correctly. (I currently hold a patent for a drag system for a spinning reel, US Patent 7,789,335, made with Rulon LR and Rulon J.)
So just what is the correct way to design a reel drag to get consistent performance? There may be no simple answer to that question, but perhaps it would help to have a little better understanding of that science of Tribology that I mentioned earlier as it applies to the type of friction device found in fishing reels.
Sealed or un-sealed drag?
Why choose one over the other? The main concern is saltwater; if you're fishing in the sea a sealed drag is by far the best idea as salt can damage open drag systems. Sub-zero temperatures can also freeze up an unsealed drag that has got wet. The downside of sealed drags is that you often can't maintain them - if the friction washer disintegrates, you may not be able to replace it yourself. If the ability to maintain the reel yourself is important to you, you'll need to check that you can get into the sealed drag and do it without voiding your warranty.
Sealed drag reels have a similar construction to non-sealed, with the obvious difference that they are designed to prevent entry of water and grit. It's the "O" rings that give the game away.
![1653484664790.jpeg]( "1653484664790.jpeg")
By-the-way, if you are ever tempted to dismantle a reel's drag system, it's usually done by removing a screw that's in the centre of the drag knob. This screw will usually be 'left-handed' ie you turn your screw driver clockwise to undo it.
Otherwise it doesn't much matter so long as you check the condition of your un-sealed drag from time to time.
How to set the drag
Most people seem to set a drag by pulling some line off and saying "that'll do". When they get a fish on they adjust the drag to suit the situation.
There doesn't seem to be a scientific method of finding the right setting but it's interesting to attach a 1kg bag of sugar to your line and see if you can lift it off the ground with the drag fully on. You can apply surprisingly little pressure to a fish through rod and line so your drag needs to be set perhaps less tightly than you may think.
The article above recommends setting drag at 25-30% of the breaking strength of your tippet. You'll have to experiment with a spring balance to know what this is.
For trout I set the drag so that a sharp pull on the line will just stop the reel over-running and then adjust with a fish on.
The Click
This is a very personal thing. Some people like the sound of old-fashioned click and pawl reels produced by a stiff metal clicker, some prefer a modern, less obvious click made by reels using mechanisms that have no other function than to make a noise. Some reels click when you wind in, some are silent. But everyone wants to hear a reel scream when a fish tears off into the distance. Sadly, that's the sort of thing you only get to know about once you've got the reel in your hand and a fish heading to the horizon.
Capacity
Reels are marketed by line size - eg 5/6, 7/9 etc - indicating that they will be able to accommodate those line sizes plus some backing comfortably. You're not always told how much backing and of what type (backing has differing thicknesses depending on material and brand) so in reality you have to experiment a bit to work out how much to use.
Here's a forum member's (Vintage Badger) picture of two reels: "#3/4 Reel on the left with WF#3 line and 30m of backing, a #2/4 reel on the right with WF#3 line and 100m of (similar thickness) backing. The reel on the left is slightly larger in width too." Note the smaller arbour reel holds more line.
A small arbour reel with a wide arbour can often hold the most line and be the lightest.
![1653404878923.jpeg]( "1653404878923.jpeg")
Filling a reel with line
You need to put backing and fly line onto your reel. Sometimes the manufacturer will tell you how much backing a reel can take but it's not always accurate because they don't know whether you're using a floating or a sinking line (the sinker will be thinner). They also don't know the thickness of whatever backing you've got.
Not only that but guess what? there's no standard for spool volume so one brand's 5/6 is another 4/5. If you want to hear more about this mess start reading from post #91 in this thread.
You want to fill the reel almost to the rim - too little and you're not getting the advantage of the arbour of the reel (fewer reel turns, lower line memory) too much and your reel jams against the frame.
Here's a way of getting it nearly right. I say nearly because you can put the backing onto the bare reel quite tightly, but if you do that on top of the fly line it disappears into the turns of line.
Weight
There is a tendency now to make rods and reels as light as possible. You'll see reels with holes in their drums to reduce weight and spools with narrow spokes. Large arbour reels are often heavier than standard arbour because they have to be physically larger. Saltwater reels are usually the heaviest. But does it matter?
There are differing views on this, some say that a rod and reel need to be balanced. You'll often hear that a rod's balance point should be towards the end of the cork handle as it meets the blank, but it's not clear why. Here's Brian talking about it - start at 2min 50secs.
I find it unconvincing and prefer a reel to be as light as possible. We have to move the whole system - rod, reel, line and lure - through the air and the lighter the whole system is, the less effort it takes. Moreover, the weight felt when casting is changing all the time depending on how much line is outside the rod tip; the leverage effect of the rod magnifies this as does the force applied. There is no stable fulcrum point.
With modern rods now weighing almost nothing - a 9' #5 is about 3oz - a reel plus line and backing can be three times that weight and more when wet. Just buy a light reel.
Left or right-handed reel?
Most modern reels are set to be used with a left-hand wind as standard but all can be changed easily to right handed. The instructions on how to do this will come with the reel, but here's a common way.
Traditionally, there was a preference for casting a fly rod with the right hand; upon hooking a fish, the rod was then transferred to the left hand and the reel was operated with the right. This is why so many 'vintage' fly reels are right hand wind. While some traditionalists still observe this seemingly rather awkward practice, most modern right-handed fly anglers prefer to keep the rod in their right hand and wind the reel with their left when playing a fish. Hence, most modern fly reels are set up for left hand wind, but can usually be converted quite easily to right hand operation. This saves the reel manufacturer having to make specific right handed and left handed reels.
Maintaining a reel
Sealed drag reels need little maintenance other than a regular wash and dry, particularly if it's been used in saltwater. Other types may need a bit more but you need to follow the instructions that come with your reel. As you've seen above there are different types of drag systems and greasing or not greasing them may be critical.
Here's a guy showing how it can be done
Other bits and pieces
One of the annoyances of lines is that few of them are printed with what they are so that once it's on a reel it's hard to know what you've got. Some reels though have little peg indicators that you can set to tell you (Two I can think of off-hand are the Greys GTS 500 and the Hardy Ultralite - both cassette reels. Very useful.)
Some reels have closed frames or cages around them and some are open. Closed frames are strong but can be a bit fiddly because your line can get trapped. Open reels are easier but maybe a bit less robust.
Here's a decent video discussing some of the stuff above
Introduction
This article is about the kind of reels we'll normally find in the UK for trout fishing here.
For UK trout fishing, the reel is the least important piece of gear we have. Many people consider it simply a container for the line. Tenkara fly anglers don't even use one.
But for those who like to play a fish off the reel's drag it's a critical piece of equipment and for others a reel is a piece of exquisite engineering-as-art that will one day become an heirloom. Some people simply buy them as investments and put them on a shelf to admire.
You'll have to make up your own mind where you are on that tool-to-ornament spectrum.
History
Fishing reels have been around in some form or other for hundreds of years and were called winches or winders in pre-Victorian England. Many reels were made by artisans, individual craftsmen and gunsmiths in the 1800s from wood, brass, steel and ebonite but perhaps the archetypal fly reel form that all modern fly reels descended from was the Hardy Perfect which had a drag and a detachable spool..
You'll find a short history of reels as well as all things fly fishing in Mark Kurlansky's book "The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing" - highly recommended read - but here's a short history.
http://www.fishingmuseum.org.uk/reels_overview.html
[Anybody got any other good links or recommended books?]
Components of a fly reel
All fly reels look like centre pin reels - because they are. The centre pin is a very old design - based on a hub and axle like a wheel; the pin in the centre of the reel is also called the spindle, shaft or post.
The spool spins around the spindle and holds the line. The handle is attached to the spool.
Some kinds of spools are fully interchangeable cassettes - usually made of polycarbonate plastic. This is a clever and low-cost way of keeping many different lines without needing to buy many different reels or expensive metal spools.
The spool has an arbour. The arbour is the centre part of the spool that the line is wrapped around. Arbours can have large, medium and small diameters. They also have various widths, obviously the wider the arbour the more line can be contained on the reel. More on this later.
The frame holds the spool in place and guides the line onto and off it; it can be open or closed.
The drag is a brake on the spindle which slows the line coming off the reel when a fish runs, protecting the line from sudden breakages. It's controlled by loosening and tightening the drag knob on the side of the reel. Drags can be open or fully sealed. Open drags allow the user to maintain them, sealed drags stop water, salt and grit entering the mechanism.
A few reels do not have drags, these reels are click and pawl. With no drag they can be very light and are used mainly for small fish. You use your hand and fingers to brake the reel and slow the fish. The pawl makes the all-important click and stops line overruns when you pull line off the reel. (Line overruns are when the reel keeps spinning after you've stopped pulling line off - it can cause a bird's nest tangle.)
The reel foot fixes the reel onto the rod.
The size of the reel seat is an AFFTA standard like the line standard. This means that any fly reel younger than 20 years or so should fit on any fly rod.
And that's pretty much it. But of course, this is fly fishing and we like to make things more complicated than that so there are multiple tweaks and variants around this basic design.
Here's an exploded image of a modern reel with an unsealed drag and an open frame.
Here's a click and pawl reel. The clicker can be seen in the left-hand picture as a small, silver pointer. It meshes with the cog in the right-hand picture.
Materials
Aluminium
Probably the majority of reels made today are of aluminium alloy which is light, durable and machinable. There are two ways to make a fly reel out of aluminium; machine it or diecast it. And just for fun, there's a hybrid method that machines diecast parts.
(There are also hot and cold forging - ie stamping - too but I haven't seen those methods mentioned in reel marketing material.)
Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC), Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)
These technologies are used to carve reels out of solid blocks of aluminium alloy, like Michelangelo finding David inside a block of marble.
You may have read the terms "bar stock" or "billet" in a reel's marketing material. "Bar stock" refers to the solid bar of aluminium that the reel is carved out of. CNC, is the program used by a CAM system that produces the reel's parts from the block.
You'll also sometimes see the term 'aircraft grade' used alongside CNC as an indication of quality (and possibly to justify a high price). Whether a reel actually needs to be made out of aircraft quality alloy or indeed whether that's the best material for the job is moot. "Aircraft quality" doesn't actually define much but most higher-end CNC reels are cut out of 6061-T6 alloy which is 98% aluminium and 1% magnesium with some other elements chucked in. 6061 is actually used for some aircraft parts, but also in truck frames, rivets, motorboats and so on so maybe it's not that big a deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6061_aluminum_alloy
CNC and CAM methods make it possible for manufacturers to make repeatable, high tolerance parts reasonably quickly, if rather wastefully (see video below).
Here's how Hardy make a CNC reel
And here's how a highly skilled guy does the same thing almost by hand and eye.
Both manual and CNC methods look like terribly wasteful processes, though no doubt the waste aluminium is re-cycled.
Die-casting
Depending on volume, a cheaper method of making aluminium reels is by using a die-cast process. Here molten aluminium is poured or injected into moulds under pressure.
These reels can feel a little less refined - this is how one retailer describes them
Die-Cast Aluminium reels should not be confused with machined aluminium reels. Die cast aluminium is metal that has been heated and cast in to the shape of a mould - often there are tell-tale molding marks on die cast reels, small burrs and imperfections. Die cast reels are more impact resistant than plastic but have nowhere near the structural integrity of machine aluminium reels.
That's probably a bit of an unfair description as most modern reels feel and look pretty good, but there's no doubt that diecast reels can be made out of lower quality alloy that do not like to be dropped onto hard surfaces. But then neither do thin, lightweight CNC reels.
But not all diecast reels are inferior products these days, an example of a well-made diecast reel, which appears to defy that description is the Lamson Liquid which is also known for its excellent drag system.
https://www.waterworks-lamson.com/products/liquid
Another big value diecast seller is the Orvis Clearwater.
Finishing
All reels are finished with some kind of coating to protect them from our clumsiness.
Anodising
Aluminium alloy reels are sometimes described as being anodised, which "is an electrochemical process that converts the metal surface into a decorative, durable, corrosion-resistant, anodic oxide finish."
It's by far the best form of coating, especially for saltwater fishing, but as usual there are varying qualities.
This is a good article by Orvis explaining the process.
https://news.orvis.com/fly-fishing/pro-tips-understanding-anodizing
Powder Coating and Painting
Other, probably cheaper, methods are powder coating and painting with the former being more protective than the latter.
Interpreting this
When you put all this together you can create a bit of a quality ladder with anodised CNC/CAM (or handmaking) from bar stock on the top rung and painted diecast on the bottom. In between we have
THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT.
As usual, it's actually quite difficult to get accurate information about the gear that you're buying from the website you'll be buying it from. At the expensive end of the market, the reel's bragging rights are usually spelled out fully and effusively. But lower down the price range things get more blurred and open to interpretation. Often the word 'machined' will be used to describe a reel, but that could mean almost anything - if they use it, they probably want you to think it's carved from a solid block, but unless they specifically say so, it might be cast, then machined.
So long as diecasting uses good processes and good alloys, there's no reason why they too can't be anodised, but they rarely seem to be; the reason can only be cost as it's by far the best method of protecting your reel. But also not all bar stock, CNC reels are anodised - my Snowbee Spectre isn't.
[...] precision CNC machined aluminium reel at an amazing price! Machined from high grade, aircraft aluminium bar stock, […] Extra hard paint finish for salt-water & chip resistance.
So the educated buyer will want know whether the reel is machined from bar stock (and preferably with a high grade alloy), whether it's diecast and then machined, and whether it is anodised, powder coated or painted. Because each of those can be a step down the quality and price ladder. Remember, die cast reel rarely bounce and paint flakes.
Plastic
The cheapest reels are made out of plastic and that - possibly apart from their lightness - is their only real advantage, although you could make a case for durability. One problem is that they are so cheap that their internal components may also be poor. They're ok to get started with, but most serious anglers would avoid them.
Carbon Composites
Composites, sometimes called graphite, reels were once in the majority but now have become less fashionable. I'm not sure why, they make light, serviceable reels. Many remember the Leeda Dragonfly reels (well I do anyway) - sturdy and clever with detachable spools.
https://getflyfishing.com/parts-of-a-fly-reel/
Price
This is fly fishing so you can spend £20 on a perfectly functional fly reel or £3,000 on one that does almost exactly the same job in normal use but was made by the brand equivalent of Gucci; I've seen them described as jewellery - and if you look at some Abel reels you'll see why - but they are also very well engineered.
CNC reels use the most expensive materials followed by die-cast, composites and plastic. And quality is pretty much in that order too. With the exception of reels bought purely for investment, saltwater reels with sealed drags are the most expensive.
The majority of reels are now made in China and it's common to find spools from one brand will fit another as the brands tend to make only small cosmetic changes to a standard model to differentiate themselves. Most reels are very well made these days regardless of price.
Arbours (sp: arbor, US)
The arbour is the centre area of the spool, the part that the line winds around. This can be of a small or large diameter and many points in between. All arbours were originally quite small but now probably most are large. A large diameter arbour makes for a more efficient retrieve - fewer turns of the handle to retrieve the same amount of line. It is also less likely to create a memory in the line as it's packed in larger curves.
There are trade-offs though, the larger the arbour the larger the frame and spool and therefore the heavier the weight. Perhaps counterintuitively, small diameter arbours can contain more line and backing.
Here's a large arbour reel - note that the line is wrapped around the outside of the spool like a tyre sits on a wheel hub.
Arbours can also be of different widths ie the inside measurement across the reel from the handle side of the spool to the drag knob. You can see in the image above that the arbour width tends to increase in size as the arbour diameter also increases.
Cassette reels
Cassette reels use low-cost polycarbonate spools which are easily interchangeable so the reel can be easily loaded with several spools containing different lines. I'm a big fan of cassette reels because I experiment with a lot of lines and I don't want to have to buy a dozen reels.
Drawbar Reels
As the name implies, these type of reels have a bar that runs through their centre. Turning the drag on the bar pulls the spool onto the cork friction plate.
It's a remarkably simple design equalled only by the remarkable price of these forms of reel. This is a video of an Islander reel showing its working parts. $750.
Semi-automatic Reels
Semi-automatic reels have a clockwork mechanism and a lever that winds the line in, er, automatically. They have the same drag mechanism as a normal fly reel for fighting a fish but the reel's springs aren't strong enough to pull in the fish and, as they don't normally have a handle, the fish is fought and retrieved by hand.
They're quite popular in continental Europe but less so much here. They can be quite expensive and because of the extra clockwork tend to be heavier than standard fly reels.
The main advantage seems to be in competition fishing with Czech nymphs where time is important - reeling in with the lever is about three-times faster that reeling with a handle.
The winding speed is constant, and can be controlled by the number or length of lever presses.
Slack in the line can reeled in with just one finger on the lever, something not possible with normal reels which require the second hand for winding.
The Drag
Drags can be very important to some but not at all to others. It mostly depends on the size of the fish and whether and how hard they run. For most UK trout fishing drags are not essential as even larger trout can be played by hand - either by palming the reel or simply gripping and releasing line with the non-rod hand. But others like to play a fish 'off the reel' and for that they require a decent drag.
I like a large drag knob which gives good feedback when tightened - preferably with a click, although these seem rare - and can be set to spin freely to all the way to almost a dead stop in only a single turn - and do it evenly and progressively.
There are other uses for drag. If you have it set fairly lightly it will prevent overruns when pulling line off the reel - ie the spool won't carry on spinning causing a tangle. You also tighten it down when you're carrying a set-up rod with the fly in the keeper ring.
Basic click and pawl reels don't have a separate drag system, just a simple clicker to create some resistance to the spool turning, which stops reel overruns. However, on more advanced click and pawl reels the level of resistance is adjustable, which creates a 'click drag' type system; though not one powerful enough to stop a determined fish.
Components of drag systems
The drag system has been made in many different ways but these days you normally find the drag behind the spindle. Drags are similar to car clutches where circular plates press against each other, the friction between the plates causing the braking effect. As we tighten the drag knob the friction plates press harder against each other and the spindle slows.
The friction washer itself - the thing that's being squeezed to create the brake - can be made of paper, cork, carbon, ceramic, felt, Teflon, stainless steel, aluminium etc. Here's a video of a guy dissembling various drag systems. I don't recommend his use of the scalpel but it shows you the inside of the drag mechanism.
And another showing how to make a replacement washer for the drag out of G10 composite
It matters a lot what that friction washer is made out of as it will get very hot when a fish is tearing off into the distance, and the various materials used react differently to pressure and heat. Some burn! Others expand and still others lose friction. If you find yourself having to tighten the drag after a fish has been on for a while, it's because it's losing friction.
So you'd think that the best material for the job would have been found by now and all reels would use it - but sadly not. Here's a rundown.
Type of Drag System
This is unfortunately a topic that could require pages of information to describe what was discovered in the DragensteinTM Project. I will attempt to generalize and narrow it down to a few salient points.
A. Is the system a dry washer system or is grease incorporated? If the system is a stack of grease-impregnated felt washers running against metal, consider that the performance is going to change as the reel and drag system change temperature, grease is extruded, and as the felt washers age. In fact, these popular systems will never run the same way twice until the felt is totally disintegrated. Drag performance will change depending on the temperature. If they are on the deck of a boat in tropical sun or in a snow storm in Alaska, they will never perform the same way twice. These are not going to be good reels for fast running, open-water fish. They may work for trout or bream fishing where the drag will receive little use.
B. The same advice applies generally for grease-impregnated cork or cork composite. As the grease is extruded and the cork flattens and wears out, the drag system will continue to change. They are only slightly more stable than grease-impregnated felt and subject to the same problems as felt. These types of washers will permanently compress if the drag is not fully loosened when the reel is stored and in general loose their performance over time.
C. If the heart of the reel drag system is dry carbon or a dry carbon fiber, it will probably follow the trend we saw in testing. It will start running with plenty of drag, perhaps with minimal start-up forces (typical initial spike in drag forces as the line begins running), but will immediately go into a period of fade where drag forces taper off. That is then typically followed by a period of drag pressure increase as the spool empties line (spool spinning speed is increasing). That increase can be many times the original drag pressure setting.
Obviously this can be a big problem if the angler is not anticipating it. It is necessary to adjust the drag repeatedly as the fish is played and with continued removal of line.
D. Teflon (PTFE) drag washers are frequently found in spinning reel drag and can be very problematic. Teflon is known for being very slippery stuff and may give the impression that it will make a good adjustable friction surface. That only sounds good in theory. Teflon is very soft, permanently compresses very easily as it gets hot, and is too slick to make a usable drag. Even when it is impregnated with glass or some other substance (and it also goes by a lot of different names so you have to be careful to check it out), it still compresses and will loose its adjustability. The exception to what I am telling you here is my next discussion.
E. The best performing drags tested on DragensteinTM were
consistently drag systems with drag washers made of Rulon. Rulon comes in a number of different types, each with their own friction characteristics, and if properly designed in the reel will provide a fisherman with his best choice for an open-water drag system. RulonR is basically a teflon based material, but it has been altered in composition (proprietary composition) so that many of the undesirable traits of teflon are avoided. This material will reproduce consistent results during testing if everything is done correctly. (I currently hold a patent for a drag system for a spinning reel, US Patent 7,789,335, made with Rulon LR and Rulon J.)
So just what is the correct way to design a reel drag to get consistent performance? There may be no simple answer to that question, but perhaps it would help to have a little better understanding of that science of Tribology that I mentioned earlier as it applies to the type of friction device found in fishing reels.
Sealed or un-sealed drag?
Why choose one over the other? The main concern is saltwater; if you're fishing in the sea a sealed drag is by far the best idea as salt can damage open drag systems. Sub-zero temperatures can also freeze up an unsealed drag that has got wet. The downside of sealed drags is that you often can't maintain them - if the friction washer disintegrates, you may not be able to replace it yourself. If the ability to maintain the reel yourself is important to you, you'll need to check that you can get into the sealed drag and do it without voiding your warranty.
Sealed drag reels have a similar construction to non-sealed, with the obvious difference that they are designed to prevent entry of water and grit. It's the "O" rings that give the game away.
By-the-way, if you are ever tempted to dismantle a reel's drag system, it's usually done by removing a screw that's in the centre of the drag knob. This screw will usually be 'left-handed' ie you turn your screw driver clockwise to undo it.
Otherwise it doesn't much matter so long as you check the condition of your un-sealed drag from time to time.
How to set the drag
Most people seem to set a drag by pulling some line off and saying "that'll do". When they get a fish on they adjust the drag to suit the situation.
There doesn't seem to be a scientific method of finding the right setting but it's interesting to attach a 1kg bag of sugar to your line and see if you can lift it off the ground with the drag fully on. You can apply surprisingly little pressure to a fish through rod and line so your drag needs to be set perhaps less tightly than you may think.
The article above recommends setting drag at 25-30% of the breaking strength of your tippet. You'll have to experiment with a spring balance to know what this is.
For trout I set the drag so that a sharp pull on the line will just stop the reel over-running and then adjust with a fish on.
The Click
This is a very personal thing. Some people like the sound of old-fashioned click and pawl reels produced by a stiff metal clicker, some prefer a modern, less obvious click made by reels using mechanisms that have no other function than to make a noise. Some reels click when you wind in, some are silent. But everyone wants to hear a reel scream when a fish tears off into the distance. Sadly, that's the sort of thing you only get to know about once you've got the reel in your hand and a fish heading to the horizon.
Capacity
Reels are marketed by line size - eg 5/6, 7/9 etc - indicating that they will be able to accommodate those line sizes plus some backing comfortably. You're not always told how much backing and of what type (backing has differing thicknesses depending on material and brand) so in reality you have to experiment a bit to work out how much to use.
Here's a forum member's (Vintage Badger) picture of two reels: "#3/4 Reel on the left with WF#3 line and 30m of backing, a #2/4 reel on the right with WF#3 line and 100m of (similar thickness) backing. The reel on the left is slightly larger in width too." Note the smaller arbour reel holds more line.
A small arbour reel with a wide arbour can often hold the most line and be the lightest.
Filling a reel with line
You need to put backing and fly line onto your reel. Sometimes the manufacturer will tell you how much backing a reel can take but it's not always accurate because they don't know whether you're using a floating or a sinking line (the sinker will be thinner). They also don't know the thickness of whatever backing you've got.
Not only that but guess what? there's no standard for spool volume so one brand's 5/6 is another 4/5. If you want to hear more about this mess start reading from post #91 in this thread.
You want to fill the reel almost to the rim - too little and you're not getting the advantage of the arbour of the reel (fewer reel turns, lower line memory) too much and your reel jams against the frame.
Here's a way of getting it nearly right. I say nearly because you can put the backing onto the bare reel quite tightly, but if you do that on top of the fly line it disappears into the turns of line.
Weight
There is a tendency now to make rods and reels as light as possible. You'll see reels with holes in their drums to reduce weight and spools with narrow spokes. Large arbour reels are often heavier than standard arbour because they have to be physically larger. Saltwater reels are usually the heaviest. But does it matter?
There are differing views on this, some say that a rod and reel need to be balanced. You'll often hear that a rod's balance point should be towards the end of the cork handle as it meets the blank, but it's not clear why. Here's Brian talking about it - start at 2min 50secs.
I find it unconvincing and prefer a reel to be as light as possible. We have to move the whole system - rod, reel, line and lure - through the air and the lighter the whole system is, the less effort it takes. Moreover, the weight felt when casting is changing all the time depending on how much line is outside the rod tip; the leverage effect of the rod magnifies this as does the force applied. There is no stable fulcrum point.
With modern rods now weighing almost nothing - a 9' #5 is about 3oz - a reel plus line and backing can be three times that weight and more when wet. Just buy a light reel.
Left or right-handed reel?
Most modern reels are set to be used with a left-hand wind as standard but all can be changed easily to right handed. The instructions on how to do this will come with the reel, but here's a common way.
Traditionally, there was a preference for casting a fly rod with the right hand; upon hooking a fish, the rod was then transferred to the left hand and the reel was operated with the right. This is why so many 'vintage' fly reels are right hand wind. While some traditionalists still observe this seemingly rather awkward practice, most modern right-handed fly anglers prefer to keep the rod in their right hand and wind the reel with their left when playing a fish. Hence, most modern fly reels are set up for left hand wind, but can usually be converted quite easily to right hand operation. This saves the reel manufacturer having to make specific right handed and left handed reels.
Maintaining a reel
Sealed drag reels need little maintenance other than a regular wash and dry, particularly if it's been used in saltwater. Other types may need a bit more but you need to follow the instructions that come with your reel. As you've seen above there are different types of drag systems and greasing or not greasing them may be critical.
Here's a guy showing how it can be done
Other bits and pieces
One of the annoyances of lines is that few of them are printed with what they are so that once it's on a reel it's hard to know what you've got. Some reels though have little peg indicators that you can set to tell you (Two I can think of off-hand are the Greys GTS 500 and the Hardy Ultralite - both cassette reels. Very useful.)
Some reels have closed frames or cages around them and some are open. Closed frames are strong but can be a bit fiddly because your line can get trapped. Open reels are easier but maybe a bit less robust.
Here's a decent video discussing some of the stuff above
