Fishing reel

A low-profile bait casting reel
(gear multiplying)

A fishing reel is a device attached to a fishing rod used in winding and unwinding fishing line.

Modern fishing reels are designed to help in casting for distance and accuracy.^[1] Reels also retrieve line, usually with a handle. Fishing reels are traditionally used in the recreational sport of angling. They are also used in the sport of competitive casting. Reels are usually attached to a fishing rod by some means. However specialized reels are made to be mounted directly to the boat gunwales or transoms.

The first writing describing a fishing reel is from about 1100 years ago in China.^[2] Fishing reels first appeared in England around 1650 AD. By the 1760s, London tackle shops were advertising gear-retrieved reels. An American watchmaker and inventor, George W. Snyder, invented the first gear multiplying reel abut 1810.^[3]

Fishing Reel Media

Parts of a spinning reel: 1: Pick up or bail 2: Reel seat 3: Reel foot 4: Handle 5: Support arm 6: Anti-reverse lever 7: Skirted spool 8: Fishing line 9: Drag adjustment knob
An Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD) stone tablet, currently displayed at the Xuzhou Art Museum of Han Stone Gravings, with engravings depicting an angling rod with a wheel-like device (lower right corner)
"Angler on a Wintry Lake," painted in 1195 by Ma Yuan
The Art of Angling, first published in 1651, is the first English language book to cite the use of fishing reels.
A picture of a centre-pin reel
Fly reel and rod with a caught brown trout
Australian made "Alvey" sidecast reel
A fishing reel
An older design baitcasting reel — the ABU Garcia Ambassadeur

References

↑ Creative Publishing International, Complete Guide to Freshwater Fishing (Minnetonka, MN: Creative Publishing International, 2002), p. 56
↑ Rick Hafele, Nymph Fishing Rivers and Streams: A Biologist's View of Taking Trout Below the Surface (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), p. 1
↑ Frank Mackie Johnson, Forest, Lake and River; the Fishes of New England and Eastern Canada, Vol. II (Boston, University Press Cambridge, 1902), p. 309

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[1] Creative Publishing International, Complete Guide to Freshwater Fishing (Minnetonka, MN: Creative Publishing International, 2002), p. 56

[2] Rick Hafele, Nymph Fishing Rivers and Streams: A Biologist's View of Taking Trout Below the Surface (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), p. 1

[3] Frank Mackie Johnson, Forest, Lake and River; the Fishes of New England and Eastern Canada, Vol. II (Boston, University Press Cambridge, 1902), p. 309

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