CHAPTER X. 



FISHING KEELS. 



NEXT to a good rod there is nothing that contributes to 

 the pleasure of the angler so much as a well-made reliable 

 reel, and I am happy to be able to state that the improve- 

 ments in fishing reels for Black Bass fishing have fully kept 

 pace with the improvements in fishing rods. Manufactur- 

 ers and inventors have taxed their ingenuity in devising the 

 best and most suitable reels for both fly-fishing and bait- 

 fishing, and the American reel, as the American rod, is to- 

 day the best in the world. 



But the enterprise of some makers has been directed in 

 wrong channels ; for instance, we now have multiplying 

 reels made with both a " drag" and a "click," which com- 

 bination might be termed a " mechanical tautology," and is 

 the perverted outgrowth of what was originally a valid and 

 useful arrangement. 



The manufacture of the now famous Kentucky reel was 

 first begun some forty years ago. They were, and are still, 

 made with a drag and an " alarm," both being operated by 

 flat, sliding buttons. The use of the drag is obvious in such 

 a free-running reel. The alarm consists of a piece of thin 

 watch spring bent back upon itself somewhat in the form 

 of an elongated '* U," one end being attached to the sliding 

 block, the other end free, to engage in the small steel pin- 

 ion on the end of the shaft of the spool. 



This reel was originally made for bait-fishing only, and 

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