The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Snape wrote:Welcome aboard scavenger
Sorry I do not know about the Slater Latch but that reel is certainly bakelite and I think it is an Allcock Aerialite.
I'm sure someone more knowledgable than me will be along to answer your questions soon.

Thanks for the quick reply and for the welcome.

The reel was made by Stewart & Allwood, Sydney, Australia under the brand name Steelite. It was never an expensive line and reputed to be somewhat fragile because the material is brittle. But then, bakelite is brittle. Going by this example the line offered a good facility so long as it was not dropped onto a hard surface, as was very likely to happen on wet slippery rocks at the seaside.

Have a look at this link Scavenger for a picture of one of my Nottingham Slater latch reels..

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=75

A general question to the 'reel history buffs' out there.

It seems to me that the farther back one goes in fly fishing terms the more likely one is to see fly reels being made (some of them pretty crudely) of riveted brass plate and occasionally (later) aluminum or bakelite while in coarse fishing / trotting / bait fishing terms it doesn't seem to take too long to get back to when reels were the lovely big free running centre-pins of mahogany and other fine woods we see being talked about above.

Has there ever been a tradition of wooden reels being specially made for fly fishing? Or was the distinction between the two "methods" not quite so precise in the past as it is today?

A quick look at 'Google' brings up the Millward's 3 and 1/2 inch reel which is made of wood and seems to be a fly reel. Was this the most common wooden fly reel? I can imagine that the bigger reels (5 inches or so) might have been used on big hefty two-handed salmon rods but they wouldn't be much good on a short trout rod.

A 3 1/2in for sale on ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321214039424? ... 1555.l2649

Hi, Scavenger, and !

Most checks are either on or off, so yours is just fine. More complicated ones were for specialist methods like trolling from a boat, or, my inner cynic suggests, solving a fictional problem and selling reels.

The Slater latch and its copy-cats allow you to remove the spool without there being a retaining nut to lose; even more useful now than when the reels were designed, because modern lines are much finer and will find a way to get round the back of the spool unless your line management is flawless. And a loose retaining nut will at some point, get lost, unless you put it in your mouth, in which case it will, at some point, get swallowed.

Bakelites are my new weakness; as warm as wood (almost) and often a bit Art Deco in styling, but a bit more fragile, they are perfect for "Ponding", and the close-range river float method, "swimming the stream", but I haven't yet got my paws on one smooth enough for trotting.

Thank you, Vole. I guess that was the answer I was looking for.

So the Slater Latch is a quick release device for putting on and removing the spool and its function has nothing in common with the function/s of clicker, check or drag while one is actually fishing with the reel.

My reel has just such a quick-release device for the spool which I did not think to mention as I did not know it would have any relevance. You do not see anything of it inside the back. It is entirely housed inside the spool and engages with a little knob on the end of the spindle. I have no idea what the latch mechanism looks like and no way of finding out but I wonder if it is an example of the Slater Latch!

I'm guessing that on your reel, you twist the central knob against a spring to release the spool? If so, it's like a Slater latch in principle, but more thoroughly screened, to keep out sand and mud.

More gen and pics here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=877&p=32304&hilit=slater#p32304

Yes that's exactly right. That's how the spool is released.

Now that I know what I'm looking for on your Slater Latch reel and also on Mark's it seems to me that the only difference is that the release knob is displaced to the side a bit on these two and, I'm guessing, slides rather than rotates to disengage the spool. I had previously taken it that this knob was to engage/disengage a check.

But what is the almost-complete-ring thing on the inside of the back of your reel? Apparently nothing to do with the Slater Latch. Is that the check? Bears no resemblance to the clicker mechanism in mine.

Oops! I maybe it was not on Vole's reel that I saw the almost-complete-ring thing inside the back but on Tadpole's: and MaggotDrowner's metal reel back has the same feature. I knew Mark's was not the only one.

That'll be the check spring - there's any number of ways those can be configured. What all checks have in common is a pawl - the triangular bit of metal which engages with the toothed wheel on the back of the spool; how pressure is applied to and removed from this varies widely.