Chris_Hughes
Well-known member
The first rod and reel I could call my own was a 6ft solid glass Daiwa boat/pier rod combined with a Daiwa fixed spool. However, due to safety reasons, the local pier was shut down in the late sixties and I found the six footer too short for the local shore marks. So having saved some pennies, I purchased a Craddock 12 foot beachcaster coupled with a Gallion 42R fixed spool. A couple of years later I changed the reel for a Mitchell 600 multiplier. I mastered the multiplier and purchased several others but I could never accept the tackle losses due to their abysmal speed of retrieve (slower than a three legged tortoise on Valium). So I upgraded to what was at the time the state of the art fixed spool, the legendary Mitchell 498. Yes they where agricultural, but that was their strength as there was very little to go wrong and they could retrieve line like a scolded cat, in fact I still have my original 498 which I still use today and I don\'t think any multiplier could have sustained the amount of neglect and abuse that this reel has sustained, there is now more metal than paint on view on the body but the internal mechanics are as good as the day it was built. This at the time of purchase was coupled with another ledgend of its time, the Daiwa Moonraker. Soon the Moonraker gave way to a Conoflex DC6 which is still in use some 20 years later. In recent years, the arsenal has grown to include many other reels and rods, but the DC6 coupled with the Mitchell 498 is still amongst the favourites especially where some backbone and speed is required.