CENTRE PIN REELS

[Alan Stubbs]

Due to injury, I have a slightly closed hand, and I for one find feathering line on a fixed spool reel impossible with one hand. I have to use my left hand, but the control is way greater than I ever achieved before the injury.

[Jim Gibbinson]

Leon asks why I sometimes use a centrepin?

 

I use a centrepin for close-range float fishing because the act of drawing-out a loop of line prior to every cast is easier to accomplish with a centrepin than it is with a fixed-spool. Wind-tangles are more readily avoided, too. The foregoing assumes, as I've mentioned elsewhere on previous occasions, the centrepin has a check and a line-guard.

 

PS. With reference to finger pressure on the spool - as Alan says, this is readily achievable with the reel-hand (indeed, I think I probably use this method most often, even though I've no physical impairment which makes it necessary).

 

In short, the centrepin is the more efficient tool for that sort of fishing. Were I float fishing at greater distance than readily achievable with a loop-pulled-through-the-rings style, I would use a fixed-spool.

 

No mystical qualities, no "joy of direct contact" etc., no talk of artistry or what-have-you, just simple efficiency for the job in hand.

 

But when it comes to playing any resulting fish, it's as easy and efficient on one as on the other.

[Leon Roskilly]

Jim Gibbinson:

I use a centrepin for close-range float fishing because the act of drawing-out a loop of line prior to every cast is easier to accomplish with a centrepin than it is with a fixed-spool.

Wow! That's some investment to overcome an incovenience!

 

Respect

 

(I struggled for years, trotting with a fixed spool reel, before buying a centrepin to overcome my problem with keeping mullet on the hook)

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Alan Stubbs]

Jim Gibbinson:

.

 

PS. With reference to finger pressure on the spool - as Alan says, this is readily achievable with the reel-hand (indeed, I think I probably use this method most often, even though I've no physical impairment which makes it necessary).

It's sad to admit, but when I started fishing after the accident, I was worried about using the reel hand to control the rate at which line was coming off the reel for fear of doing something stupid of which I was unaware. It was Leon and Steve burke who told me - in fact, showed me- how to do it!

 

They knew at the time how grateful I was.

[Spindle]

I understand what Jim is saying about a 'pin being just another efficient tool to catch fish, and he's probably right.

 

However, by the same token you could say that worming is a far better method for catching a salmon, yet plenty of people prefer to chuck fluff at them with big rods and fly-line.

 

For me, the choice of tackle I use for fishing is important in that it should give me pleasure as well as catch fish. I prefer a pin over a fixed-spool any day, but I can't quite explain why.

 

For me there is a "feel" thing, and so I like to use them knowing that if I was to use a fixed-spool or closed-face reel I could probably catch twice as many fish. For me catching fish is not that important (good thing really!!!!).

[Jim Gibbinson]

No argument there, Spindle. I agree that there are aspects to fishing that go beyond size and numbers of fish etc.

 

If someone prefers to fish nymphs rather than hairwing lures, prefers to fish dry flies rather than nymphs, prefers to use float tackle rather than leger tackle, prefers to catch carp off the top rather than on the bottom etc etc that's fine. Likewise if someone prefers to use a centrepin rather than a fixed-spool. What I have little or no patience with is the attitude that a particular tactic or what-have-you is somehow superior to another, and, in the case of centrepin reels, virtues and characteristics are applied to them that they simply don't possess.

[Dick Dastardly]

Strangest reason I have ever heard of for using a pin Jim! It does show how ever that different people require different things from a piece of equipment for certain situations than others.

 

Good sound selection of tackle used is all part of angling skill.I also think there is nothing wrong with using tackle or a method just because you like it.After all pleasure is what we do it for.But I do agree with Jim that when a piece of tackle is given "mystical qualities" or used purely for the "snob value" its pathetic.

[Jim Gibbinson]

Budgie, why is ease of use (i.e. practicality) and avoidance of wind-tangles "strange"? Pragmatic rather than strange, I would have thought...

 

I'm not being deliberately quarrelsome, just puzzled.

[BobH]

Pins of course have their place and they are nice to use at times.

But I see them as just another piece of fishing tackle.

There seems to be a bit of Eletism being premoted by the Pin Boys these days.

In the 50s everyone had a pin and an Intrepid De Luxe if you were lucky.

There was none of this snobbery about the Wallis cast.

Some anglers used it, other just pull out loops of line of off the eyes up the rod to gain enough distance for the cast required.

Unless you are preoccupied with the Wallis cast, a line gaurd is essentual in helping to stop the line catching around the back of the reel.

If I want to cast across a big river or cast a long way, surely that is where a Fixed spool comes into its own?

Was it not Mr Crabtree who Pulled coils of line onto a newspaper whilst Carp fishing with a pin, of course he was using a Par Boiled Potato with a Treble hook inside.

I dont think many anglers would want to go back to those days ?

The Centre Pin still has its place for trotting a float down the side of a river or short range carp fishing.

But they are hardly a pancreas for everything good in angling.

Lastly the cost, as already discussed in other threads, most pins are a complete rip off and to have a Pin that Turns sideways like a Fixed Spool is completely beyond me.

[RollingPinBoy]

...but the side caster centre pins were used and invented before the fixed spool reel though..i think!

 

[ 09. January 2005, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: RollingPinBoy ]