Reel Repair by Alan Tani

My mom came down to SoCal from Crescent City to spend Christmas with us.  She brought 2 boxes of my dads reels with her.  While digging through the boxes I found an Ocean City No.36 fly reel.  With no drag and 3 1/2" across it is as basic as it comes.  I can't remember ever seeing him use a fly set up to fish with so I'm not sure where it came from.  Also in the box is a Pflueger   1554.  With all these fly reels I just might try to find a rod and migrate to the dark side 😆. Bill

Nice. "The dark side". Ha! More like a snooty, refined, high-class gentle-fisherman.

Nice.

Those old Phlueger Medalists still have a following.  I have a 1494 lying around somewhere. Want to say that it is a bit small for a 6wt double taper line, but should be fine for a 4 or 5.

Apparently folks used to hot rod out the old Medalists with custom parts back in the day.  Things like handle counterweights, and different drag parts.  I remember a Lefty Kreh trick for getting more drag by cutting a window out of the sideplate so that you could thumb the spool with a patch of leather.  No bonefish ready reels back in the day, I guess.

Found this link that breaks down the markings and features to help date the Medalists:

https://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/oldflies/part287.php


That 1554 is really old school - maybe 30s or 40s?  I bet the ORCA crowd would know.

First that I ever heard of Ocean City fly reels.

If you ever pop them open, it would be great to see what they look like on the inside.

Thanks for posting these!

-J

Thanks Dave for the link.  When my thumb heals up from surgery I will open them up.  Bill

yeah Bill, you can't drive a coffee cup, so hold off on the long wand, big shooter             

Quote from: thorhammer on January 04, 2023, 08:09:26 PMyeah Bill, you can't drive a coffee cup, so hold off on the long wand, big shooter             

Now that's funny John 🤣