The Ideal Company the Wire Line reel

This oddball reel has been loaned to us by our pal Keith Elliot as a blog item.

Bought with a collection of big game fishing reels, you would naturally assume it’s for wire line trolling for larger fish.

It’s made by the Ideal Reel Company of Paducah, Kentucky, USA. The company was founded in 1958, and is still running today, and still making the same reel some 60 years later.

You wonder if it’s so successful, why we don’t see more. Well, that’s coz it isn’t a fishing reel!

Designed for wire line construction workers and cable laying a few must-have found their way into tackle bags over the years. Many anglers still fish reel-only from boat and pier, so it makes sense to assume its original design was angling based.

A leather strap or belt would have used to attach the reel to you and off you go.

Hardy and others made wire line and distance measure reels of a similar style and these too infrequently turn up,