The Plowman 507 - the best closed face reel ever produced

[MHC]

One of the reasons that ABU type closed faced reels are pretty useless for fast running, decent fish is that the so called drag does not operate as other reels (fixed spool, multiplier, fly) which allow for the spool to smoothly revolve under variable resistance with extra input from the angler using finger pressure. In effect, 500 style closed faced reels backwind as the spool cannot revolve. The cup with the pick up pin needs to revolve backwards in order to yeald any line, couple that with a narrow spool with indifferent line lay, plus the odd synchro gears governing things via the handle with little input from the angler.. the line pulled off the reel quickly comes out erratically at best .
I am not surprised to read that Richard Walker ended up handlining in his carp in frustration.

Pleased that you like John Milner's reels Nobby, he is an old school engineer from the UK who has lived on the West Coast of Canada for many years. His reels have a certain Hardy look and feel about them, especially his Talisman which is very similar to a Silex. I have one of his ball bearing Kingfishers.He makes his reels on a lathe and come in bushing and ball bearing incarnations. They are wonderful in use and due to the round rather then pillared drum core, the line remains straight.

[Kevanf1]

Would this be the Ron Lees who wrote "Perfect your ledgering" a true Barbel master in his day

In a word.....YES!

As ever,.......


Mole Power!!!

Indeed As I glanced over to my left I have just picked out my copy of 'Perfect Your Legering' by Mr Lees. The video, or snippets from it came back into my mind

As an aside, it is a good but often underrated range of books. There are four in total, three of them authored or written by John Bailey (Perfect Your Baits, Perfect Your Tackle and Perfect Your Float Fishing). Do not be fooled by the 'Tackle' title. Many bill it as being sun damaged or somewhat bleached. It is not, the original printing was of a lighter hue of blue than the other titles.

[BeechmereLake]

I may consider a ploughman 507 as I only have two left, 1 is battered from use but runs perfect and my other is here in a cupboard, used once and doing no harm sitting where it sits, right now its worth more than a D. Ploughman reel so can stay where it is as it owes me nothing, a collector from the USA gave me this as a present for helping him with his Mitchell collection.

[PerchBasher]

One of the reasons that ABU type closed faced reels are pretty useless for fast running, decent fish is that the so called drag does not operate as other reels (fixed spool, multiplier, fly) which allow for the spool to smoothly revolve under variable resistance with extra input from the angler using finger pressure. In effect, 500 style closed faced reels backwind as the spool cannot revolve. The cup with the pick up pin needs to revolve backwards in order to yeald any line, couple that with a narrow spool with indifferent line lay, plus the odd synchro gears governing things via the handle with little input from the angler.. the line pulled off the reel quickly comes out erratically at best .
I am not surprised to read that Richard Walker ended up handlining in his carp in frustration.

Pleased that you like John Milner's reels Nobby, he is an old school engineer from the UK who has lived on the West Coast of Canada for many years. His reels have a certain Hardy look and feel about them, especially his Talisman which is very similar to a Silex. I have one of his ball bearing Kingfishers.He makes his reels on a lathe and come in bushing and ball bearing incarnations. They are wonderful in use and due to the round rather then pillared drum core, the line remains straight.

I’m always a little puzzled about claims that closed face reels are no good for playing larger fish as were they not originally designed by Abu for spinning for pike and other large fish? It as only after British match anglers realised that also made a very good trotting reel that they began to be regarded as suitable only for smaller fish.

I use mine matched with five pound line and have landed barbell of seven pounds plus. On still waters, it has coped with low double carp that butted in when I was fishing for tench and I felt comfortable using it.

Something I have found, is that many anglers using closed face reels set the drag incorrectly. My technique is to set it so it will give line when the rod keels over, not when you feel the line is close to breaking, as this risks a hook pull or even a break. Set correctly, if you hook a good ‘un that tears off, a quarter turn of the handle backwards will give line and allow the fish to run. At the net, or if the fish heads for a snag, a quarter turn forwards returns the drag to its original setting.

Many old school match angers removed the anti-reverse dog on their closed face reels and played fish on the backwind. That works to a degree, but its difficult to put any pressure on a running fish.

[PerchBasher]

One of the reasons that ABU type closed faced reels are pretty useless for fast running, decent fish is that the so called drag does not operate as other reels (fixed spool, multiplier, fly) which allow for the spool to smoothly revolve under variable resistance with extra input from the angler using finger pressure. In effect, 500 style closed faced reels backwind as the spool cannot revolve. The cup with the pick up pin needs to revolve backwards in order to yeald any line, couple that with a narrow spool with indifferent line lay, plus the odd synchro gears governing things via the handle with little input from the angler.. the line pulled off the reel quickly comes out erratically at best .
I am not surprised to read that Richard Walker ended up handlining in his carp in frustration.

Pleased that you like John Milner's reels Nobby, he is an old school engineer from the UK who has lived on the West Coast of Canada for many years. His reels have a certain Hardy look and feel about them, especially his Talisman which is very similar to a Silex. I have one of his ball bearing Kingfishers.He makes his reels on a lathe and come in bushing and ball bearing incarnations. They are wonderful in use and due to the round rather then pillared drum core, the line remains straight.

[MHC]

As I have written, I have owned my ABU 505 since 1973 and in the past I have tried hard to have confidence in it. Good luck to those who enjoy using them. I also still have my ABU TIght Lines catalogues going back to 1971 and (from memory) the larger closed faced reels came along a few years after the 505's introduction, indeed they were aimed at pike and salmon spinners. Maybe a few of them actually used them, however I still have my UK fishing books from the 70's and almost all anglers seemed to use Mitchells and Ambassadeurs for salmon and pike. Looking at ABU websites just now I see but one closed face model on the UK site and none on the N American site.

In my book there are but three 'big fish' reel types: fixed spool, multiplier and centre- pin (I include fly in there). Certainly other reels (like closed face or spincast) can catch fish but there is a reason (for example) that 90% of anglers trotting floats for Great Lakes migratory fish use centre-pins of traditional design but up to date manufacture; apologies, but I also needed to move beyond my old Avon Royal Supreme..a ten pound steelhead can be quite a handful.

I realize that some British coarse anglers have a soft spot for the 500 series reels, I did also, as I brought my 505 over here when I moved. It's just that I quickly realized that it was not up to the task, fishing for (forgive me) more energetic fish then the 'genteel' English coarse varieties that I used to catch on the float.

Time to rest my case,

Malcolm