EARLIEST REEL—TIGHT OR RUNNING LINE 9 
is figured in the title page of The Experienced Angler by their 
contemporary Venables) and a crude winder, such as survives 
to-day in our sea-fishing, but intended as an attachment to a 
Rod.! ; 
This marks a logical and likely step in evolution. It is 
inconceivable that invention should have soared to a Reel 
without there having been some intermediate stage between it 
and the “tight’’ line. The advantage of extra line for 
emergencies must have been recognised pretty early, and a 
wire ring at the top of the Rod, through which the line could 
run, naturally resulted from such recognition. 
The method of disposing of the “spare” line may be 
presumed from survival of primitive practice. Not many 
years ago pike fishers in rustic parts of England often dispensed 
with a reel. They either let their spare with a cork at its end 
trail behind on the ground, or wound it on a bobbin or a piece 
of wood, stowed away ina pocket. Nicholas explains Walton’s 
(chap. v.) “ running line, that is to say, when you fish for a trout 
by hand at the ground ”’ as “a line, so called, because it runs 
along the ground.” 
It seems impossible to fix with certainty the period at 
which fishing with a running line made its first appearance. 
No early data exist, nor do the few early pictures of medieval 
rods indicate the presence of a wire top ring. I had a lively 
hope, when I recalled its many plates and figures, of extracting 
some guidance from the most important French work of early 
1 Dr. Turrell, the author of that researchful book, Ancient Angling 
Authors, London, 1910, while of opinion that the “‘ wheele ’’ was in the course 
of time evolved from the ‘‘ wind ” of the troller, differentiates between their 
uses in fishing. Barker “‘ put in a wind to turn with a barrell, to gather up 
his line and loose at his pleasure: this was his manner of trouling.” 
Walton’s words are, “a line of wire through which the line may run to as 
great a length as is needful when (the fish is) hook’d and for that end some 
use a wheele,” etc. The use of the “ wind” as described by Barker in his 
first edition was simply to gather up the slack line in working the bait, “ this 
was the manner of his trouling’’; while that of Walton’s ‘‘ wheele ”’ was to 
let the line go, in playing the rushes of salmon, of which his experience seems 
mainly vicarious. 
Sea-anglers of the present day prefer in many cases man-handling the 
line to using the reel: thus the Spanish fisherman on striking a tunny throws 
the whole Rod back into the boat, the crew of which seize the line (which is 
of great thickness) and haul the fish in by sheer brute force. (See The Rod on 
the Rivieras (1911), p. 232.) 
