According to Vlan Evenoff, in his book SPIN FISHING, spinning was introduced into the US in 1946.

I know that the US was still an emerging nation back in 1946 but can that really be possible? Surely the US wasn't that backward?

[ 13. September 2004, 10:58 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

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When was George W born? Was that after 1946?
Yes obviously they were that backward!

Colin

A few quotes from A J McClane's Fishing Encyclopedia (sic - colonials can't spell )

"Luxor reel (Pezon-Michel) introduced into States in 1939 - then supplies were cut off by the war"

"1947 before spinning tackle received broad public acceptance in the USA"

Stand by to receive broadsides from Newt and Severus folks

BTW Neither was the UK that advanced in spinning technology in those days, despite the fact that Malloch invented a fixed spool reel in 1884 .
Fixed spools and free-running centrepins and multipliers were rare and expensive during and just after WWII.

I caught my first decent river pike (14 lb) on a Kidney spoon back in 1945 - didn't own a fixed spool then, very few people did - used a cheap wooden Nottingham reel with loops laid out carefully on a cycle cape.

Spinning would have been easier off a good centre-pin such as an Aerial, but I couldn't afford one at the age of 11. Kids couldn't cast far direct off the reel with a cheap wooden Nottingham !

Bought a claw pick-up Mitchell as soon as I left school in 1950 and have used it ever since. Have also aquired decent 'pins and multipliers since then.

[ 14. September 2004, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

For all practical purposes, both the open face (fixed spool to you) and closed face (spin cast) spinning reels only got seriously started in the US in the late 1940s.

Before that it was all fly and bait casting gear.

Note: the US spin-cast reel and the UK closed-face reel look somewhat similar but are very different reels.

George W. was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, but he grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas.

[ 14. September 2004, 12:45 AM: Message edited by: Newt ]

Wasn't George Washington born a tad earlier than that Newt?

Surely US anglers had spinners available to them prior to 1946. I have US lure fishing gear that dates from the late 1930's so plugs and spoons must have been around back then, but not spinners? Almost third world !

In my copy of 'A Book on Angling' by Francis Francis, first published in 1850 something, there are numerous references to 'spinning'.

The Holroyd, Kidney, Wagtail, Devon and Colorado spinners were all around before WW2. As usual, we invent it and someone else develops it!

[ 14. September 2004, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

Peter - certainly lures, including spinners as well as plugs, were in use much earlier but I thought we were talking about the use of open faced, fixed spool, spinning reels.

When an American talks about 'spin fishing' he/she is talking about using that style of reel rather than a type of lure.

[ 14. September 2004, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Newt ]

A question of detail and culture Newt.

Different for us Newt, we spin with a spinner, irrespective of the reel type. Nowadays it all comes under the general heading of lure fishing.

If we go float fishing, using an open face/spinning reel, we are float fishing! But by the US definition we would be spinning, or so it seems !

The old language thing again. Love it.

A question then. My father fished mostly for largemouth bass and fished mostly with a fly rod, fairly large streamer design "bass fly" with an inline spinner (not part of the fly) attached to the front. Floating fly line, fly rod, fly reel, fly /w spinner.

So by your terms, was he fly fishing or spinning?

Other times he'd change out and use a fairly large, "bass" bug - a larger version of a popular item used for catching bluegills. Cork body about the size of a marble, tufts of hair, and a hook. Also fished on a fly rod. So was he plugging or fly fishing?

In both cases, we spoke of it as fly fishing as opposed to the spinning I started on as soon as the reels came available where I lived (early '50s). He eventually switched over but I remember it as being in the late 50s or early 60s.

He would have been fly-spinning!

I can go into an English tackle shop and buy a fly-spoon or a fly-spinner.

Game, ala UK, fishing has never been my specialist subject Newt but I think his tactics would have been classed as fly fishing. The heatherns amongst us who use bass bugs for pike certainly regard it as fly fishing! The term 'fly rodding' is catching on in the UK. Maybe that describes what your father was doing in modern parlance.

[ 15. September 2004, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

I guess I'm a bit confused. I had always presumed that level-wind bait casting style reels preceded spincast reels, whether open or closed faced. I use levelwind reels exclusively for trolling, since they are so *#@#! hard to cast with.

So when were spincast reels invented?