1. Troutnut Forum
›
2. Photography
›
3. A real Brook Trout

Here is a real brook trout I also caught in the Catkills. Sorry the picture is taken away from the water but rest assured the fish was returned to the water shortly after the picture was taken and swam away quickly.

Beautiful fish and very nice photo.

-Shawn

Shawn,

Thanks! Where is Pleasant Gap? Have you ever fished the WB or main stem?

Matt

what kind of reel is that?
beautiful fish BTW, thanks for posting

That is one of the classics! If you don't have at least a couple of these you'll never know the sweet sound of success as a fish runs the drag.

That particular reel is a Hardy LRH. I have two of those. The next size up is the Princess which I have two. Going down is the Featherweight which is good for a DT3 with a little backing or a DT4 with no backing. Lastly in the Hardy Lighweight Series is the diminutive "Flyweight" which is ideal for you #1, #2, or #3 devotees.

Hey, WBranch. Pleasant Gap is about 10 miles Northeast of State College. I've never fished the Delaware (well, maybe once when I had no clue what I was doing), but it's definitely something I'd love to do someday.

-Shawn

it is a great looking reel! probably out of my budget though... I think Martin used to make a cheap lookalike...

James,

Heddon produced the inexpensive look-alike 300 series clones back in the '60s. Occasionally they still turn up on E-bay, but the winning bids seem excessive for a used knock-off. (I had one as a kid, but the handle fell off.) You can also find plenty of the real Hardy Lightweight series on E-bay, but they usually bid out from an extreme low of $150 (rather poor condition) to more than $200.

James,

Like I said, it is a classic design and looks great on your lighter graphite and bamboo rods. When I was a kid of 20 years old I used to go to a fly shop in NJ called "Ramsey Outdoor Stores" and there were just two reels available at that time in the early 1960's. The Plueger "Medalist" Series and the Hardy "Lightweight" Series.

I remember "saving up" the $25.00 to buy my first Hardy LRH and the extra spool was $6.00 or $7.00. Actually most of the reels built today are machined out of solid bar stock aluminum where the Hardy Lightweight is just an aluminum casting (or maybe a forging which would be stronger) and then the casting is machined to the finished inside and outside dimensions.

I'll post another picture of a Hardy and a trout.

It must be the Heddon I am thinking of. A guy I grew up with had one. I love the Pfleuger Medalist except that you can't switch the handle to lefty on the smallest model. I bought a box of old South Bend reels several years ago on ebay-- there were three of them in various states of disrepair, enough to create two functioning reels-- for about 10 bucks. But they are so old that the drag is practically worn away... I bought an expensive rod last year (Winston) and feel like I should match it with a decent reel... but on the other hand, should probably replace my leaky waders and rusting vise before that!

great pics Wbranch that rainbow is a pig!

James,






A new Winston, a new digital camera for the wife, a decent reel for the Winston, new waders and a new vise! Man, your ‘fishing stuff’ budget is the envy of us all.

If you want my $.02 you don't have to spend an arm and a leg for a good functional reel. I have three Teton salt water reels and like them so much that I found a nice trout model on FAOL for $100. It hold a DT4 and enough backing for all but the biggest and hottest Delaware rainbow. It has a disc drag, is great looking, and the color is like a blackish blue. Large arbor reels are nice and Cabelas's has many reels to select from.

Ha! Falsify the reel, waders and vise have not yet received purchase approval from senior management, aka the spouse. we're working on that...

Wbranch thanks for the rec, I will check it out. BTW, what is the reasoning behind 'large arbor' reels?

By the very design of LA reels they can retrieve line many times faster than that of the reels where the spool diameter is in the 1" diameter range.

It can be particularly helpful when a large fish makes a big run, say all your fly line and 25 yards of backing. Now you have about 165 feet of line out there in the river. If the fish suddenly changes direction and runs straight back towards you it is important to get line back onto the spool as fast as possible.

Even if you never expect to be getting big fish on a regular basis the LA reel is nice because the coils of line on the spool are much bigger compared to those tight, spring like, coils you see on conventional reel spools.

nice picture!